Historical Perspective of American Education A contemporary educational system has a variety of institutions to suggest. However, they all emerged in the past centuries and transformed to meet the demands of every epoch. Fowler (year) singles out four major periods in the history of American education. There are periods of Young Republic, Common School, Scientific Sorting Machine, and Reform Period (from 1983 till present). In the period of the Young Republic, education policy was oriented on the market. The influence of other institutions, such as politics or bureaucracy, was weak. Common School was greatly bureaucratized with the moderate impact of professional and political spheres. The period of Scientific Sorting Machine faced the significant influence of legalization and bureaucracy while the presence of political and market determiners was minimal. At present, the influences during the Reform period are unsettled (Fowler, year). The contemporary educational system is characterized by the importance of the academic realm and prestige (Reynolds, 2014). Another popular trend is academic mobility, which is usually supported by the government. One of the problems of the American education system is its diversity. The division into elementary, middle, and high school is different depending on the state or community. It can cause problems if a student moves from one state to another. Thus, one component of education reform can be a unification of the education system. Contemporary Purpose of Public Education National School Boards Association (2014) provides the answer to the question on the purpose of public education today based on research data. Thus, board members were asked to rank six goals of education. Almost one-half of educators considered that the primary goal of education is to help students fulfill their potential (42.6%). Another important destination of contemporary education was to prepare students for a satisfying and productive life (31.7%) (National School Boards Association, 2014). Other purposes were estimated as not so significant. Thus, preparing students for the workforce or college were equally evaluated by 8.1%. The preparation of students for civic life had the lowest rating of 3% (National School Boards Association, 2014). Such distribution of education purposes differs greatly from those of previous years when education was professionally oriented. Jobin-Leeds summarizes the meaning of educating as “to prepare and train someone in the necessary skills to have the ability to participate in society as a full citizen” (2012, para.3). This purpose of education is broader than any other. It comprises the variety of knowledge necessary for living in a society such as understanding the functions of government, the knowledge of personal rights and duties, and other information important for a young personality. Out-of-field Professionals as Organization Leaders Superintendents are the professionals of the highest rank in the system of American education. They have much influence on the functioning of the school. However, the research proves that they have almost no impact on students’ educational performance (Brown Center on Education Policy, 2016). Another research reveals the nece