I found this essay while looking for good readings on the progressive era to accompany a batch of primary sources. I particularly like this quote:

We should realise that the school’s theoretical architecture, like its physical structure, is an historical construct crafted with a particular set of intellectual tools in response to social, political, and economic needs, and be alert to the fact that the common sense understandings this intellectual blueprint sustains are inherently problematic.

Thorndike and Dewey on the Science of Education, Oxford Review of Education 23, no. 3, (1997): 365-83