Here is a terrific post by Steven Singer, documenting what the Founding Fathers said about education.
There was no public education when they wrote the Constitution. There was private education, Dame schools, church schools, and large numbers of children who were not educated at all. Some states funded charter schools, which were private academies for wealthy children. In the early nineteenth century, not much had changed. It was a great step forward when real reformers like Horace Mann and Henry Barnard began a national campaign to persuade states to take responsibility for creating public school systems, tax-supported and staffed by qualified teachers.
The curious thing about today’s reformers is they want to return us to the olden days, with the public paying for religious schools and private schools, subsidized by taxpayers.
Singer writes:
“One of the founding principles of the United States is public education.
“We fought a bloody…
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