Article 2: A Right Turn on the Left Coast: Max Rafferty as California State Superintendent of Public Instruction 1963–1971

The 1960s was a tumultuous decade in American public education. It was a time of transition and change. To many Americans in the early 1960s, Max Rafferty appeared to be a reactionary conservative harking back to an educational past. The longer perspective of history may instead see Rafferty as a harbinger of the educational policies of the 1990s. Thus, Max Rafferty’s notions of educational policy and practice deserve attention.

The nation entered an era of vibrant social experimentation and rebellion in the 1960s. While student radicals at U.C. Berkeley anticipated the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, scarcely noticed, just a few miles away in California’s State Capitol, the first stirrings of the conservative revolution that would transform the nation in the 1980s were already evident. Indeed, the man who came to embody that transformation, and even lend his name to the Reagan Revolution, was inaugurated as Governor of California on January 2, 1967. But if one person were to epitomize conservative educational policy in the 1960s, it was Max Rafferty. Elected as California’s superintendent of schools, in 1963, he held the office for two terms until 1971. These were some of the most contentious and transformative years in public education. Rafferty’s educational philosophy was one of back to basics. He claimed that he killed progressive education in California and considered that one of his greatest achievements. During his two terms in office Rafferty contended with curriculum issues, divisive desegregation controversies, and lawsuits that transformed educational finance and redefined the notion of educational equality He pushed a conservative view of school curriculum and the social place of schools. In fact, California would resist many of the educational trends of the 1960s, and lead the reaction. Most of California’s largest school districts made, at best, token efforts to desegregate and the prevailing progressive model of teaching came under vigorous attack. To many Americans in the early 1960s Max Rafferty appeared to be a reactionary conservative harking back to an educational past. The longer perspective of history may instead see Rafferty as a harbinger of the educational policies of the 1990s. Thus, Max Rafferty’s notions of educational policy and practice deserve the attention of educational historians seeking the origins of the educational agendas in place at the close of the twentieth century.