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The common school, today’s public school, evolved as the result of a social and political movement between the early and mid-1800s. A number of important ideals and rationales infused the movement which, at its heart, believed a well-educated citizenry was essential to the survival of a new-found democracy.
In 1800, education was less formal than today with many learning in apprentice relationships, through private tutoring, and through a collection of private academies that varied from college preparation for an elite few to finishing schools. Most students were not educated beyond the fifth grade.
The purposes of education were different than those proposed by champions of the common school. Colonial education (1) was strongly linked to religious learning; and (2) consisted of a split system of “petty schools” for basic reading and writing, and grammar schools for college preparation and leadership. For reformers such as Horace Mann, however, education would champion civic, not religious, virtues and would allow all individuals to rise by merit through a common system of education.
Mann maintained that informal methods of education were not sufficient for the needs of a new democracy. He criticized the system of private academies on the grounds that they (1) provided wildly different curriculums, (2) varied greatly in standards, and (3) would perpetuate differences between privileged and ordinary citizens.
Democracy Requires Common System of Education
Concern over class differences preoccupied much political and social thought. The American Revolution had rejected monarchy and a system of landed aristocracy; democracy, maintained reformers, required a common system of education where all had an equal chance to rise by their skills and hard work. Common schools were viewed as “nurseries for freemen,” the key institution to educate citizens in the new republic.
Reformism dominated America in the early part of the 19th century. Schooling was but one of many social reform ideas put forth. Various religious groups — Owenites, Transcendentalists, and a myriad of other reform groups — dotted the American landscape, each with its own prescription about the proper relation between economy and society, religion and society, and what it meant to live in a democracy.
Moreover, formal institutions began to develop for the first time. Local city jails were replaced with prison systems and reformatories for youth, corporate institutions began to dominate as an economic force where agriculture and trade shops stood before, and asylums were created to reform the feeble-minded who once roamed village squares.
Based to a significant degree on post-Enlightenment scientific rationalism — the belief that human intelligence could be used to understand and improve the world — institutions were viewed as a scientific and progressive means by which man could apply knowledge to advance human civilization. Schooling, then, was one of many formal institutional systems that developed in the 19th century.
Although these larger social forces were a factor in the development of common schools, other factors specific to education also were at play. One historian encapsulated the stream of ideas used to promote common schools under the heading “republican virtues,” which included adherence to a non-denominational Protestantism (Kaestle, 1983).
Religion dominated much public discourse, but a truce between Protestant denominations was achieved with the agreement that democratic instruction must be non-sectarian. Any other arrangement would force one citizen to either attend or support another's religion with tax dollars. Thus, non-denominational Protestantism and the republican virtues of hard work, morality, and education for democratic citizenship were the central, binding themes of common school reformers.
Idealism and Practical Considerations Converge
The impetus for common schools, however, did not consist exclusively of democratic ideals; practical considerations also affected the discussion. Burgeoning industrialism and immigration caused profound changes in the nation’s economy and demography that concerned many political leaders. In 1810, there were 46 “urban areas” with a population of 2,500 or more. By 1860, there were 293 such areas. In 1790, the largest city in the United States was under 50,000. By 1830, an estimated seven cities contained populations of more than 50,000. Moreover, with industrialization came profound social changes. In 1796 approximately 5.5 percent of New York's population was engaged in wage labor; by 1855 that number rose to 27.4 percent. An agrarian way of life was slowly being supplanted with a wage-based economy.
Immigration also changed the nation. The number of immigrants exploded from 70,000 between 1810-1820, to 2.5 million between 1850-1860. Schools were viewed as a means by which immigrants could be “Americanized,” and were proffered as a solution to the growing “crisis of idle youth” that confronted rapidly growing urban centers. If idleness led to vagrancy and hooliganism, then industrious education was the cure.
To a large extent, reformers succeeded in establishing tax-supported elementary schools throughout the North by the 1860s. Massachusetts passed the first compulsory education law in 1852, and new states such as Wisconsin included in their constitution offices for superintendent of public instruction as early as 1848. Common schools became part of the American fabric.
The emergence of common schools, however, should not be viewed as an inevitable development. Many resisted taxes, a perceived loss of local control as state bureaucracies developed, and Catholics and others objected to the Protestant bent in common schools. These pockets of resistance, however, were often localized and disparate. Because no single voice spoke in opposition, educational reformers and their political and social allies were able to create a nationwide system of public schooling.
In addition to a well-established system of public elementary schools, by 1860, high schools and graded schools — with classes divided by student age and attainment — began to appear in major urban centers. Today’s system of public schooling is very much the legacy of this urban model. Based to a degree on division of labor, an idea associated with the efficient governance of institutions and industry, schools developed hierarchical bureaucracies with “principal” teachers overseeing a predominately female corps of classroom teachers.
Known as professionalism, a simultaneous trend promoted more educational requirements for teachers and administrators so that formal degrees and advanced education were needed to teach and govern schools. With formalized training came the belief that this new professional class of educators should have more say over how the schools were run.
Efforts to standardize curriculum, student outcome, teacher training, and attendance came to predominate as reformers strove to create what historian David Tyack called “the one best system” (Tyack, 1974). Many believed only a highly standardized system could provide equal opportunity for students who lived in different regions and came from different walks of life. Standardization, driven by the cult of scientific efficiency that dominated industry as well as schooling in the early 1900s, was in many ways tantamount to today’s concept of equal opportunity.
Success of the Common School
Growth in schooling is one way to measure success, and in that regard common schools have triumphed.
In the 1830s, only about half of all children attended school which, on average, meant 78 days per year. Rural schooling was less formal than urban, with children coming and going in concert with the demands of agricultural production. By the 1870s approximately 60 percent of children were receiving some schooling, and by 1898 the figure increased to over 70 percent. School building intensified so that between 1890-1914, a new high school was added every day.
Yet, by 1900, only one in 10 students remained in school beyond age 14. Now, at century’s end, over 80 percent of young adults hold a high school diploma nationally, and more than 60 percent go on to some form of post-secondary education. High school enrollment swelled from about 500,000 in 1900 to 2.4 million in 1920, and to more than 6.5 million by 1940, when, for the first time, more than half of America’s youth held a diploma.
The numbers mask certain exceptions so that in the South, where public schooling did not develop until much later than in the North, the rate of attendance was lower. Also, rural areas lacking sufficient population often had no high schools to attend until after the First World War. Moreover, less than 10 percent of African Americans attended school at all around 1900, and, especially in the rural South, they had no opportunity to attend high schools through the 1930s and ’40s.
The near universal reach of public education in our society is a more recent development than many realize. In 1996, 87 percent of Americans ages 25-29 had a diploma, a staggering change from just 50 years ago.
When “equal opportunity” is applied as a standard there is still much improvement needed in public schooling. Nevertheless, public schools are providing more education to greater numbers of students than at any time in our nation’s history. A growing diversity of students who are women, people of color, and low-income, are graduating and going on to post-secondary education. In this sense, some of the democratic ideals expressed by common school reformers have come to fruition.
Abandoning Public Schools as a Reform Strategy
As public schooling came to dominate American life, critiques of it abounded. Many decried a lack of standardization and efficiency; and later others decried too much standardization in schooling. Schools also were accused of being overly academic, not fit for the majority of students who needed practical education. Later, others criticized them for not being academic enough. In many ways, debates about public schooling reflect an on-going debate about what we as a people believe our society should be.
Critiques of schooling, however, were invariably about reform — what was needed and how best to bring it about. This, however, no longer is true. For the first time since our nation’s inception, many openly advocate abandoning public schools and replacing them with a privatized, voucher-driven system of education. In this sense, proponents are advocating a return to 1800 when education was split between “petty schools” for the masses and grammar schools and private academies for the children of parents who could afford them.
Citing selective data that show a “failing” system of public schools, advocates of privitization routinely promote the application of marketplace principles to education. According to their logic, a system of vouchers and private school choice is the sure path to improving the quality of education in the United States.
The public good increasingly is defined and measured by the extent to which private interests extend the reach of the marketplace. Within a system of vouchers and choice, argue proponents, schools will treat parents and students as customers, and, because of competition from private schools, public education will improve and prosper.
Under a system of education driven by market forces, responsibility is given to the individual consumer (the parents), and the aggregate choices of parents or consumers determine which schools thrive and prosper, and which fail and disappear. When things go wrong, as they certainly will, there is the justification that the market was responsible, not those who promoted the policy itself.
The Special Status of Public Schools
Self-interest is the driving force in a system of market-driven schools. Parents and students select schools that they feel best meet their personal needs, while administrators and school managers seek to make decisions that allow their schools to compete to meet the individual interests of parents and children.
Lost in the debate about private school choice, however, is the recognition that public schools are not merely service providers, or places where an individual’s or society’s economic needs are met (e.g., preparing students for the job market). Public schools have a special status as producers of values, perspectives, knowledge, and skills that are fundamental to community and society. Historically, this public function was widely celebrated.
Individualism long has been a central tenet of the American dream. The danger we face today is that individualism, in combination with private school choice, may further isolate Americans from each other and undermine the basis of our democratic society.
Studies of choice in Great Britain have shown that middle class parents base decisions about which schools to attend mostly on social class and race; at the expense of equity, fairness, and overall social justice. (Gerwitz, 1995).
The issue is straightforward: Will public resources be diverted from public schools whose purpose is to transmit values and skills that sustain democracy? These values and skills relate to respect for minority opinions, freedom of expression, and allegiance to reason over unreason (Henig, 1994). The answer to this question has implications for parents, children, and the nature of our collective future. Democracy is not just an instrument for accomplishing some other policy objective. It is a way of living together in a pluralistic and difficult world.
— WEAC Division for Collective Bargaining/Research
References
Gerwitz, Sharon; Ball, Stephen; and Bowe, Richard. Markets, Choice and Equity in Education. Bristol, PA: Open University Press, 1995.
Henig, Jeffrey R. Rethinking School Choice: The Limits of the Market Metaphor. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1994.
Kaestle, Carl. Pillars of the Republic, Common Schools and American Society, 1780-1860. New York: Hill and Wang, 1983.
Tyack, David. The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974.
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