Common Schools and the Nationalistic Aims of Public Education in the U.S.
This article is part of a project that critically analyzes the historical and present day purposes of U.S. public education. Related articles focus on the history of Secondary Education, the undemocratic nature of Local Control and the finacialization of education via Impact Investing, Social Impact Bonds and Personalized Learning. The point of this project is to further expose the underlying social control function of U.S. public education and the interests it has consistently served over time, which cannot be extracted from the undemocratic nation-state it was designed – and continually redesigned – to preserve.
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Over the past forty-years education reform policies intended to marketize, privatize and ultimately financialize the U.S. education system have spurred significant resistance across the political spectrum. Often galvanized by claims that reform policies undermine public education as a vital institution of U.S. democracy, many progressive public education advocates call to “save our schools” and return them to their original common good design. Within this “good ole days” or “Make America Great Again” narrative, romanticized notions of the original Horace Mann Common School movement are often referenced. This storyline is premised on the belief that the current attack on public education is therefore an attack on American democracy, which presupposes that the United States was founded as a democracy and struggled to remain so thereafter. While the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers often reproduce this storyline as they collude with education reformers, many individuals and groups who actively oppose education reform policies also disseminate this tale.
In a 2014 interview with Bill Moyers, education historian Diane Ravitchadvanced this storyline when expressing her concerns about the future of public education by claiming, “I believe it is one of the foundation stones of our democracy: So an attack on public education is an attack on democracy.” In a 2013 blog posting, Jeff Bryant of the Education Opportunity Network claimed, “the earliest advocates for public schools – Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Horace Mann – all agreed that democratic citizenship was a primary function of education.” In 2016 the National Education Policy CONTINUE READING: Common Schools and the Nationalistic Aims of Public Education in the U.S. | Dissident Voice
