The History of Public Education in America

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

By Pamela Hilliard Owens

Issue #41 March 30, 2022

When free public education for all (or almost all) became universal in the mid-19th century, that policy helped the majority of America and Americans to have at least the basic skills of reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic needed to participate in society. Education was no longer just reserved for the wealthy and well-connected, and it made a big difference in how America developed.

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Unfortunately, ever since at least the Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka Supreme Court decision ruled that public education should be truly equal and integrated, some groups in America have fought to destroy public education because public schools are supposed to be integrated, offer equal financial support and facilities, be diverse racially and otherwise, teach all of American history, and be secular, not religious-based. 

Public Education in the 17th and 18th Centuries

When the Puritans arrived on these shores in 1620, one year after the first large of Africans captured for enslavement arrived in 1619, they decided that public education for basic skills and core religious training was necessary. At that time, the primary goal of education was to teach reading so that children could read the Bible.

In the early 18th century, most public schools were replaced by private academies for males only. Most girls, if they got an education at all, were only taught at home and/or by private tutors, and again, just enough education to read the Bible. Girls were expected to strive for marriage, motherhood, and homemaking by their mid-teens. They didn’t need much education to reach those goals.

Thomas Jefferson proposed a two-tier system of public education paid for by tax dollars that would divide schools for “the labored and the learned.” But his proposal fell flat and the only public schools available at that time for boys and girls were run by ministers who received some government funding.

Finally, starting in about the 1840s, sparsely furnished public schools with one teacher teaching all grades and abilities started in many parts of the country. The teachers were primarily unmarried young women who were paid not much more than room and board. Again just basic skills were taught and grades beyond 6th or 8th grade were not common.

Horace Mann, who was appointed the Secretary of Education for Massachusetts in 1837, is credited with expanding teacher training, separating students for age and grade, offering elementary education to all students (well, almost all students). 

The reason most schools close down for the summer months is because in the 19th century, most people still lived on farms and the children were needed to work the crops from the spring planting until the fall harvest.

When many people moved to the cities to work in the manufacturing plants, an 8th-grade education was quite enough to work in the factories. Very few people went on to high school and those who did usually had to travel to larger cities and live with relatives to obtain higher education. College attendance was even rarer. 

(Of my four grandparents, only one attended and graduated college; my maternal grandmother received a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from Tuskegee Institute in the 1910s. The KKK burned crosses on her lawn because she dared to leave the cotton fields to get an education.)

Segregated Schools in the 20th Century

At the end of the 19th century, in 1896, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under what came to be called the “separate but equal” doctrine. That decision led to decades of “Jim Crow” laws that codified segregation in all public places, including public schools, especially in the South. Jim Crow was the norm in the South and some places in the North until Brown v Board of Education in the 1950s and the Civil Rights movement and acts in the 1960s.

In many public schools in the North, white and Black students often went to school together, but rarely socialized together. 

After Brown, many white parents around the country took their children out of the public schools and opened up separate “academies” that retained racial segregation. Many schools in cities in the North, including Boston, Massachusetts, and Pontiac, Michigan, experienced violence and intimidation when forced busing was used to integrate schools. 

Integrated schools were also a primary impetus for “white flight” from the cities to the suburbs when whites still desired racially segregated neighborhoods and schools.

Religion in Public Schools in the 1960s

In 1962, when the Supreme Court declared that school-sponsored prayers in public schools were unconstitutional in the Engel vs Vitale decision, many religious activists declared that all of society’s present “ills” were because the government “took God out of our schools.” 

The Court ruled that, under the establishment clause of the First Amendment, “it is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by the government.”

However, the Court ruled that while state-sponsored prayers in schools are unconstitutional, students are fully free to pray in public schools — alone or in groups, as long as they don’t disrupt the school or interfere with the rights of others.

Meanwhile, public schools are still under attack for not allowing prayers in schools. Not only is that against the First Amendment which states that “it is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by government,” but people only want Christianity and their version of Christianity taught in public schools. 

Not only are these groups trying to open their own religious and/or racially segregated schools private charter schools, but they are also demanding that their schools receive public funding meant for the public school systems, thereby deliberately attempting to undercut public schools completely. 

Public Schools in the 21st Century

On the whole, public schools today are essentially and supposedly free of racial segregation, gender bias, and unequal funding. In reality, however, there are still plenty of problems in public schools caused by the same groups of people. Bias against LGBTA+ students and non-Christian students of any race is still prevalent, and the “culture wars” against teaching any kind of “American history” that is not white-supremacy-based or that doesn’t teach “American Exceptionalism” has people and governments threatening teachers and school systems. Even school board members are getting death threats for trying to protect their students and staff from a highly contagious and life-threatening virus.

Because public schools are funded by property taxes, there is a real problem with unequal funding, with “poorer” districts getting much less funding and support than “richer” districts. 

Access to technology is almost mandatory these days, but not all students have equal access and some have to sit in the parking lots of fast-food restaurants to access the internet on their parents’ cell phones. Never mind not having their own computers and/or tablets unless those items are supplied by the school.

My Thoughts

I attended public schools throughout my entire school career, including a public university. I also taught in the public schools my entire teaching career, in “poor” and “rich” districts. I am a huge supporter of the public school system and what it is supposed to be. I plan to support the public school system and public school teachers as much as I can.