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Schools get asked to fix everything
In the 19th century, the question was how to create a citizen. Thomas Jefferson championed education as fundamental to the prosperity of a democratic state, with schools uniting everyone under a shared national identity. As waves of immigrants arrived, the government needed schools to teach English and to turn the immigrant poor into Americans. The thinking was that a school would be built, and society would be transformed through it.
Americans love to think schools will solve all of their problems, and they frequently ask for more than schools are capable of providing. The impulse is to tinker toward utopia: change the curriculum or alter the budget, and perfect schools will deliver a perfect society. It is a long-held dream, and the question of how to give all students genuine educational opportunity has still not been answered.
How did Jefferson want schools to shape citizens?
In 1779 Thomas Jefferson proposed A Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge in Virginia, which would have provided free schooling for several years to all free children. He argued that an educated public could guard its own liberty and choose capable leaders. The Virginia legislature never passed the bill.
How did immigration shape what schools were for?
Roughly 20 million immigrants arrived in the United States between 1880 and 1920, according to U.S. immigration statistics. City school systems enrolled large numbers of children who did not speak English at home. Campaigns in the 1910s pressed schools to teach English, civics, and American customs. Compulsory attendance laws spread alongside them, and by 1918 every state had one.
How did schools take on so many new jobs?
The National School Lunch Act of 1946 put federal money behind school meals. Title IX in 1972 barred sex discrimination in federally funded education programs. In 1975 the Education for All Handicapped Children Act required public schools to serve students with disabilities, a law now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
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