This study examines the efforts of Radicals (Republicans) to establish a state-wide public school system in Texas between 1870 and 1873. Primary sources cover the chronological fringes of the period being examined. This study follows a chronological narrative with the four chapters examining first, educational trends in the southern states and Texas prior to Reconstruction, followed by examination of the Radical system in Texas, and, finally, its destruction by Conservative Texans. The final chapter focuses on immediate and long range results of Radical education. In examining the Radical educational program, an attempt has been made to dispel ideas popularly held by present-day Texans who believe that the Radical school program was simply another "carpetbagger" scheme for raiding the state treasury and building Radical patronage. This paper contends that the Radicals established as good a public school system as could be created at the time, and that it was administered in an honest and efficient manner. The system was destroyed by politicians and a grass roots revolt of taxpayers who had no faith in its methods, goals, or administrators.

The study was an investigation of parental decision-making regarding preschool programs for their children. Data indicated that parents investigated a preschool program beyond a conversation with the preschool director and that non-educational aspects of preschool programs were important considerations in the selection of a preschool program by parents. Parents educational preferences tended to coincide with the educational programs of the preschools they selected, although parents indicated favorable opinions of more educational variables than any of the preschools surveyed offered. Levels of education attained by mothers appeared to have little effect on educational preferences, and parents whose first child was attending preschool had educational preferences similar to those of parents whose older children had attended preschool.