Hot Issue: What Your Kids are Learning

The education of a nation determines its future and, sadly, today’s America is being educated to embrace active and large government, while simultaneously learning to disdain free enterprise and diminish the role of personal responsibility in a free society. How in the world did we get here?

Starting in the early-1600s, during the colonial period of American history, education began as primarily a family concern, supported by tutors, churches, and various voluntary associations. Education, often done by mothers, focused on teaching literacy through rote learning with a strong emphasis on Christian virtues weaved throughout. Key educational tools from the 1600s and 1700s included a few commonly-used primers, such as the New England Primer, as well as the Bible. Education during this period was understood as a way to promote literacy and to pass on the cultural values of parents and society.

The importance of education to colonial Americans cannot be overstated. The colonists and later the Founders believed that the future of a free society relied upon a well-educated and virtuous citizenry. In his Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania from 1749, Benjamin Franklin wrote that, “The good education of Youth has been esteemed by wise Men in all Ages, as the surest Foundation of the Happiness both of private Families and of Common-wealths.”

Early on, various states and localities explored ways to establish state colleges as well as ways to ensure that children were educated. Notably, Massachusetts was the first to require that parents educate their children when it implemented the Massachusetts School Law of 1642. While the law did not require attendance at a school, it did require certain obligations from parents regarding their children’s education and gave authority to representatives of the government to enforce it.

This system of education, with parents generally held legally responsible for the education of their children, but free to achieve it in any way they saw fit, remained largely in place until the 1840s. The results were impressive with literacy rates at or higher than today’s literacy rates in many parts of the original thirteen states and little to no tax revenue spent on education. Despite the seeming success, under the lead of Horace Mann and other influential reformers education in America would change dramatically.

Mann and others hoped to change the general form and ideals of American education to keep up with a growing country and evolving demographic. Some would argue that much of the drive for reform was an attempt to better assimilate the large influx of Catholic immigrants from Europe during the early- to mid-1800s. The goal of the reformers in what would become known as the Common School Movement was to implement a more defined system that would mold individuals from all socio-economic backgrounds into good people and good citizens through education.

To achieve their goals, Mann and others influenced the states to begin introducing compulsory school attendance laws, signifying a dramatic increase in state government’s role in and control of education. Additionally, the public was held responsible for the education of youth through taxation. For better or worse, by the end of the 1800s the Common School Movement had thoroughly changed the structure of American education from a primarily private responsibility to one held in common by the public.

Within this new structure of public education at the turn of the 20th century, John Dewey and the Progressives set about to fundamentally alter the very concept of education. During the colonial period and even under the Common School Movement education was seen as a way to empower the individual through rote learning of reading, writing, and arithmetic as well as a healthy infusion of Christian virtue. Dewey on the other hand believed that such a system of education was incorrect and that it stifled real learning.

Education, to John Dewey and the Progressives, was much more than simple memorization and the passing on of cultural values. Indeed, education was the means to social change. With education firmly in the hands of government, it was possible for the Progressives to implement their ideas across the nation in a relatively short amount of time. In favor of a “work-study-play” method of learning, Dewey believed that “the school is primarily a social institution. Education being a social process, the school is simply that form of community life in which all those agencies are concentrated that will be most effective in bringing the child to share in the inherited resources of the race, and to use his own powers for social ends.” In other words: Education became socialization.

While the Progressives talked about the importance of the individual, much of their work had far more to do with molding the individual to fit into a democratic society rather than preparing the individual to succeed in a free society. To understand fully the fundamental change in the purposes of education, consider this quote by John Dewey when he reflects upon his travels within Soviet Russia during the late-1920s:

I do not see how any honest educational reformer in western countries can deny that the greatest practical obstacle in the way of introducing into schools that connection with social life which he regards as desirable is the great part played by personal competition and desire for private profit in our economic life. This fact almost makes it necessary that in important respects school activities should be protected from social contacts and connections, instead of being organized to create them. The Russian educational situation is enough to convert one to the idea that only in a society based upon the cooperative principle can the ideals of educational reformers be adequately carried into operation.

Across the country Dewey’s ideas were implemented in teacher training programs and in elementary and secondary schools. Today, few Americans have escaped the socializing effects of the progressive education system.

After World War II, the influences of the Left on education became more pronounced as the idea of social change through education was vigorously pursued. American classrooms began to implement a “student-centered” approach which further deemphasized structure, discipline, rote learning of the “Three R’s,” and competition. Instead, educators focused on increasing self-esteem, creativity, and cooperative learning. Beyond student-centered learning, widespread changes took place in curriculum which would emphasize socialization over individualism, often training children to embrace a multicultural, diverse world while negatively portraying traditional American values and philosophical principles grounded in Western Heritage.

The results of over one hundred years of progressive education are clear: Many Americans are now functionally illiterate and unaware of their cultural heritage and history, let alone the vital principles and ideas upon which American society and government rest.

In recognition of this dire situation, Liberty Central and other conservative websites are coming together to engage and inspire you (the student, the parent, the grandparent) to learn how to retake education. The fight is critical to our nation and our future. If we continue to lose generations to progressive education, we cannot expect to turn the course of our great nation back to freedom.

It will not be easy to reform the entrenched education establishment. The federal government, through legislation like “No Child Left Behind” and incentives tied to funding like “Race to the Top,” heavily influences what takes place in your local schools. Additionally, many states have enacted numerous mandates dictating what local schools should teach and how they should operate. Within the schools, the majority of teachers and administrators have been influenced by colleges of education around the country to view progressive education as the proper model for teaching current and future generations of Americans.

So what can you do? A lot.

We will keep you updated on various ways to get your voice heard by state and federal representatives so that you can influence legislation and bring about real education reform. In the meantime, you can learn more about the various reform efforts including charter schools, homeschooling, school choice, online learning, alternative teacher certification, and other efforts at the following sites:

Education Next

Intellectual Takeout