History and Evolution of Public Education in the US
Throughout the history of public education in the US, public schools have filled multiple roles.
These roles are an outgrowth of why public schools came into being and how they have evolved.
This publication briefly reviews that history. For a look at how these historical purposes shape
education today, see CEP’s 2020 publication, For the Common Good: Recommitting to Public
Education in a Time of Crisis, available at www.cep-dc.org.
Before Public Schools
In the early years of the nation, schooling was haphazard. Many children were excluded on
the basis of income, race or ethnicity, gender, geographic location, and other reasons.
The children who did receive instruction, primarily white children, were educated through a
hodgepodge of arrangements:
♦ Church-supported schools
♦ Local schools organized by towns or groups of parents
♦ Tuition schools set up by traveling schoolmasters
♦ Charity schools for poor children run by churches or benevolent societies
♦ Boarding schools for children of the well-to-do
♦ “Dame schools” run by women in their homes
♦ Private tutoring or home schooling
♦ Work apprenticeships with some rudimentary instruction in reading, writing, and
arithmetic
Early schools were financed from various sources and often charged tuition.
Without a formal system for funding education, local schools were dependent on parents’ tuition
payments, charitable contributions, property taxes, fuel contributions, and in some cases state
support. At the time of the American Revolution, some cities and towns in the Northeast had free
local schools paid for by all town residents, but this was not the norm. (A few Northeastern cities
also had free schools for African American children.)
, Center on Education Policy www.cep-dc.org 2
Children in the South were educated mostly in tuition-charging or parent-organized schools.
Some rural areas had no schools. The schools that did exist outside of cities were often hard to get
to, skimpily equipped, and overcrowded. Teachers were poorly paid, transient, and inexperienced,
and some were undereducated themselves. In no state was education compulsory or fully
supported by taxes.
Democracy and the Origins of Public Schools
Preparing people for democratic citizenship was a major reason for the creation of public
schools.
The Founding Fathers maintained that the success of the fragile American democracy would
depend on the competency of its citizens. They believed strongly that preserving democracy
would require an educated population that could understand political and social issues and would
participate in civic life, vote wisely, protect their rights and freedoms, and resist tyrants and
demagogues. Character and virtue were also considered essential to good citizenship, and
education was seen as a means to provide moral instruction and build character. While voters
were limited to white males, many leaders of the early nation also supported educating girls on
the grounds that mothers were responsible for educating their own children, were partners on
family farms, and set a tone for the virtues of the nation.
The nations’ founders recognized that educating people for citizenship would be difficult to
accomplish without a more systematic approach to schooling. Soon after the American
Revolution, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and other early leaders proposed the creation of a
more formal and unified system of publicly funded schools. While some Northeastern
communities had already established publicly funded or free schools by the late 1780s, the
concept of free public education did not begin to take hold on a wider scale until the 1830s.
The new federal government provided encouragement and support for establishing public
schools.
Although the main responsibility for schooling rested with states and localities, federal
ordinances passed in 1785 and 1787 gave substantial acreage of federal lands in trust to new states
entering the union, as long as the states agreed to set aside a portion of these lands for the
support of public schools. 1 These federal “land grants” not only supported the creation and
maintenance of schools in each of the townships carved out of former territories, but also helped
to build stable communities across the country, each with a local government and education
system. The land grants show the value placed on education as positive element of nation-
building by the first federal leaders.
1 At the time of these Ordinances, most of the territory west of the Mississippi was federally owned.
Throughout the history of public education in the US, public schools have filled multiple roles.
These roles are an outgrowth of why public schools came into being and how they have evolved.
This publication briefly reviews that history. For a look at how these historical purposes shape
education today, see CEP’s 2020 publication, For the Common Good: Recommitting to Public
Education in a Time of Crisis, available at www.cep-dc.org.
Before Public Schools
In the early years of the nation, schooling was haphazard. Many children were excluded on
the basis of income, race or ethnicity, gender, geographic location, and other reasons.
The children who did receive instruction, primarily white children, were educated through a
hodgepodge of arrangements:
♦ Church-supported schools
♦ Local schools organized by towns or groups of parents
♦ Tuition schools set up by traveling schoolmasters
♦ Charity schools for poor children run by churches or benevolent societies
♦ Boarding schools for children of the well-to-do
♦ “Dame schools” run by women in their homes
♦ Private tutoring or home schooling
♦ Work apprenticeships with some rudimentary instruction in reading, writing, and
arithmetic
Early schools were financed from various sources and often charged tuition.
Without a formal system for funding education, local schools were dependent on parents’ tuition
payments, charitable contributions, property taxes, fuel contributions, and in some cases state
support. At the time of the American Revolution, some cities and towns in the Northeast had free
local schools paid for by all town residents, but this was not the norm. (A few Northeastern cities
also had free schools for African American children.)
, Center on Education Policy www.cep-dc.org 2
Children in the South were educated mostly in tuition-charging or parent-organized schools.
Some rural areas had no schools. The schools that did exist outside of cities were often hard to get
to, skimpily equipped, and overcrowded. Teachers were poorly paid, transient, and inexperienced,
and some were undereducated themselves. In no state was education compulsory or fully
supported by taxes.
Democracy and the Origins of Public Schools
Preparing people for democratic citizenship was a major reason for the creation of public
schools.
The Founding Fathers maintained that the success of the fragile American democracy would
depend on the competency of its citizens. They believed strongly that preserving democracy
would require an educated population that could understand political and social issues and would
participate in civic life, vote wisely, protect their rights and freedoms, and resist tyrants and
demagogues. Character and virtue were also considered essential to good citizenship, and
education was seen as a means to provide moral instruction and build character. While voters
were limited to white males, many leaders of the early nation also supported educating girls on
the grounds that mothers were responsible for educating their own children, were partners on
family farms, and set a tone for the virtues of the nation.
The nations’ founders recognized that educating people for citizenship would be difficult to
accomplish without a more systematic approach to schooling. Soon after the American
Revolution, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and other early leaders proposed the creation of a
more formal and unified system of publicly funded schools. While some Northeastern
communities had already established publicly funded or free schools by the late 1780s, the
concept of free public education did not begin to take hold on a wider scale until the 1830s.
The new federal government provided encouragement and support for establishing public
schools.
Although the main responsibility for schooling rested with states and localities, federal
ordinances passed in 1785 and 1787 gave substantial acreage of federal lands in trust to new states
entering the union, as long as the states agreed to set aside a portion of these lands for the
support of public schools. 1 These federal “land grants” not only supported the creation and
maintenance of schools in each of the townships carved out of former territories, but also helped
to build stable communities across the country, each with a local government and education
system. The land grants show the value placed on education as positive element of nation-
building by the first federal leaders.
1 At the time of these Ordinances, most of the territory west of the Mississippi was federally owned.
