by Brian T. Lynch, MSW
Publicly funded schools are a universally accepted
social norm in the United States and most of the world. Abandoning them would be almost
unthinkable. When we stop to consider
what we value in our communities, local public
schools almost always top the list. In most localities, they are a source of civic pride.
This isn't just true in the United
States .
Publicly funded education has become a global norm in all advanced
societies for nearly a century. But a
hundred years isn't very long in the sweeping arch of history, is it? Public schooling has fundamentally altered American
society, yet few of us can recount how this radical change came about. How did public schools come to be?
The fight to establish public schools is almost lost history. There is very little content or comment about
it on the Web or in our public media.
What we do hear lately are lively debates about burdensome public
school taxes, failing schools, voucher programs, charter schools, [fears that our children are being indoctrinated, etc]. Lost to our understanding in these debates is
how these arguments follow the exact fault lines in what was an incredibly
contentious battle, waged over the course of a generation, to establish public
schooling. The political struggle for public education has been compared as
second only to the fight for the abolition of slavery in its intensity and divisiveness,
but who remembers any of that today?
The battle to undo public education is already underway. If we fail to grasp the fact it is because we
have no historical context to recognize the attacks for what they are. If we hope to retain and strengthen our system
of public education in America ,
we need to place the current arguments against it in historical context. We need to reclaim our history.
To this purpose I recommend a book copyrighted in 1919 by Ellwood
P. Chubberly entitled, “Public Education in the United States, A Study and Interpretation of American Educational History.” It is a textbook,
long out of print, but the entire book can be downloaded or read online. Much of the book is obviously dated, but the
early chapters on the history of public education provide the valuable context we
need to understand the political arguments today.
Of particular interest to our purpose here is Chapter V., “TheThe Battle for Free State Schools”, beginning on page 118. Read this chapter first for some quick insights. Below are the full URL addresses and links to the book and its Table of Contents.
Full URL Addresses:
Book
Table of Content
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