The Next Learning System:

with contributions from: Titus Alexander, Paul Ardern, Julie Ashton, Don Glines, Sharon Ginnis, Derry Hannam, Anita Higham, Jerry Mintz, and Glyn Yeoman.

In the UK and the USA, there has been a sustained attack, for about twenty years, on something labelled 'progressive education'. 

The attack was, at first, tentative, then more confident, and then strident.  In the 1988 Education Act and the various subsequent revisions, the attackers claimed victory.

Yet the obscurity of the target makes the claim difficult to evaluate. There are two immediate problems. The first is what is meant by progressive education, and the second, what is the nature of what is supposed to replace that is so superior.

The opposite of progressive is regressive. So the mystery investigated in this book is what is the nature of regressive education.  It turns out to be no more than an attempt to refine ancient machinery to try to make it more efficient in the pursuit of obsolete goals.