History is a lot more radical than I am. I'm just trying to keep up. The claims I made, however, are commonplaces in history of education textbooks. American public education has always been intended to help society perfect itself.

Are you sure you want to argue the Constitution wasn't intended to engineer a new kind of society?  What do you make of the Preamble?

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

That sounds a lot like rational planning of a future society to me. What do you think it means? Social engineering is an American brand, an American idea that we gave to the world. Society is perfectible. People can be educated to be better. The country can be perfected. These are American ideas.