Origins of Public Education in America
How Local Control of Education Won Out over Centralized Control
Jul 27, 2009
As Susan Jacoby explains in The Age of American Unreason (2008), the answer lies in the conflicting attitudes towards learning in the early years of the nation and the conflict between religious and secular interests.
The Enlightenment Ideal of a National Public Education System
On the one hand, many of the founders supported the idea of publicly funded education, recognizing that the health of a democracy depended on an educated citizenry. Highly educated men, such as Noah Webster and James Madison, were inspired by the idealistic proposals for public schooling which emerged during the early phase of the French Revolution.
French intellectuals such as Jean-Antoine-Nicholas-Caritat, marquis de Condorcet, had underscored the connection between public education and political equality, arguing that “…to establish among all citizens a true equality…this should be the primary aim of a national system of education; and …its establishment is, for the public authority an obligation of justice.”
Practical Training Versus the Intellectual Education of the Elite
Yet, many Americans also believed that too much learning might set one citizen above another, thus violating the democratic ideals that education was supposed to promote. Education should, in the minds of ordinary people, be geared to provide direct practical benefits. It should focus on providing training for a livelihood. Anything beyond that was considered elite.
These two contradictory attitudes towards education were connected to the early rift between religious and secular interests in the new republic. The complete religious freedom afforded to citizens ironically led large numbers of Americans to embrace anti-rational, anti-intellectual forms of faith. Followers of the more fundamental religions would remain suspicious of the secular elements in the federal government and vie to keep local control of education.
Does Government Have a Moral Obligation to Educate its Citizens?
Moreover, at the turn of the nineteenth century, the violence that had followed the early phase of the French Revolution not only reinforced respect for religion in America but also bolstered the position of Conservative religious leaders who were suspicious of centralized control to begin with. Revolutionary ideals such as the notion that government has a moral obligation to educate its citizens were connected to nefarious alien influences unsuited to American social conditions.
Another element which supported local school control was the very vastness of the continent. Along with the Constitution’s deference for states’ rights, this and the zealous maintenance of local control within states and townships would preclude the emergence of any real political support for the Enlightenment ideal of a national system of public education.
The conflict over local versus centralized control of education rages on today as evidenced by the continuing debate over school vouchers and the problematic education policies (No Child Left Behind) of the previous administration. At stake is not just the quality of education in the United States, but more far-reaching issues of global competitiveness and leadership, ethics and the moral guidance of the young, and equity. Understanding how education evolved in the U.S. may offer guidelines on formulating education policy for the future.
References: Susan Jacoby, The Age of American Unreason, New York: Vintage, 2008.
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