The Little Red School House was founded by Elisabeth Irwin in 1921 in Manhattan, New York as a joint public—private educational experiment designed to test the notion that the principles of progressive education, advocated since the turn of the century by John Dewey — and tried out mainly in small, private school settings — could be applied successfully in the crowded, ethnically diverse, public schools of the nation’s largest city. In 1932, the school became totally privately funded. The Little Red School House consists of a lower school, a middle school, and a high school - Elisabeth Irwin High School. Famous alumni include Robert De Niro, Angela Davis, Kathy Boudin, Mary Travers and Victor Navasky.