Presents a brief overview of educational practice, priorities, problems, and objectives in China from 1949-1976. Major periods are identified as statism and the schools (1953-55), internal criticism and response (1955-57), the Great Leap Forward (1958-60), readjustment and compromise (1961-66), the cultural revolution (1966), and post-Mao Tse-tung political coalition and coherent educational policy (1976-79). (DB)