Education: Roots In History

From the landing at Plymouth Rock to today, educators and community members have debated over the best way that government should fulfill its responsibility to educate citizens. Underlying these debates are three central questions: What is the purpose of a public education? Who is to receive the educational services provided by the public? And, how does government ensure the quality of these educational services? In various forms, these questions lay beneath all educational changes and reform measures in American history.

Today, school choice, bilingual education, and testing are the hot issues being debated in communities, government chambers, and newspaper op-ed pages. These reform initiatives have lofty goals of increasing access, raising standards of quality, spawning innovation, and empowering students. But as promising as each of these initiatives may be, each produces unintended consequences, thus increasing the complexity of the debate.

Our goal in this material is not to encourage debate but to start deliberation. Contemporary issues cannot be reasonably discussed outside the context of history. To understand where we want to go, we need to first understand how we have come to this point. What follows is an exploration of these issues and their antecedents in history. These topics and timelines are intended to inform community members about the legacy of these vital issues in education today. Much of the information contained in these "Education" posts comes from a PBS series titled: The Story of American Public Education. Check out their weblink.