Chapter One: The History and Political Goals of Public Schooling
Chapter Overview
This chapter provides an overview of the goals and history of American public education; discusses the political goals of public
education; presents debates about these goals and the political purpose of schooling; and examines whether some of these goals have
been achieved.
Chapter Outline
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1) Goals of the Common Core Standards
a) To prepare K-12 students for work or college.
b) To improve the ability of the United States to compete in the global economic system.
2) The Historical Goals of Schooling
a) To unite the American public by instilling common moral and political values.
b) To provide equality of opportunity.
c) To provide for the welfare of students.
d) To teach multiculturalism and racial harmony.
e) To increase economic growth and prepare students for jobs.
3) The Political Goals of Schooling
a) Providing an equal opportunity for all to be elected to political positions
b) Educating patriotic citizens
c) Teaching a common set of political beliefs
d) Emphasizing voting as the key to political and social change
e) Learning about the workings of government
f) Learning to obey the law by obeying school rules
g) Educating students to be involved in community activities
4) Censorship and American Political Values
a) Textbook content is highly politicized.
b) Recent decisions in Texas have affected textbooks nationwide.
5) Courts and Political Values
a) Board of Island Union Free School District v. Steven A. Pico
b) Tinker v. Des Moines
c) Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlemier
d) Bethel v. Fraser
e) West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette
6) Political Values and State and National Curriculum Standards
a) The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 required states to create curriculum standards.
b) Recent efforts have been made to create national standards providing uniformity between state standards.
c) Debates over history standards
d) Debates over science standards
7) The Fruits of Political Education
a) Voter participation
b) Civic knowledge
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Learning Objectives
The learner will be able to identify and discuss the historical goals and purposes of schooling.
The learner will be able to identify and discuss the political goals and purposes of schooling.
The learner will be able to identify and discuss how differing political beliefs have impacted the political purposes of schooling.
The learner will be able to describe and discuss how First Amendment court cases have affected education.
The learner will be able to describe and discuss how political values affect state and national curriculum standards.
The learner will be able to identify and discuss the results of American political education.
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Key Terms
Academic learning: Within the context of schooling, what students learn from classroom instruction, textbooks, and other forms of
formal learning.
Americanization: Programs that teach new immigrants the laws, language, and customs of the United States.
Common Core Standards: A set of educational standards adopted by the National Governors Association in 2010, with the goal to
prepare students for work or college.
Service learning: A form of civic education based on a belief that voluntary engagement in civic organizations and community work is
necessary for the maintenance of a just society.
Socialization: Within the context of schooling, what students learn from interacting with other students, following school rules, and
participating in school events.
Key Concepts
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 The goals of American schools are politically determined.
 The Common Core Standards, adopted by the National Governors Assocation in 2010, determine what is taught in classes K-12.
Their goal is to prepare students for work or college.
 Preparation for work or college is tied to a larger goal of improving the ability of the United States to compete in the global
economic system.
 Steven Mintz argues that there was a transition in American though from the concept of “protected” childhood to “prepared”
childhood. “Protected” childhood focuses on the happiness and well-being of the child. In “prepared” childhood attention is given
to the child’s future as an adult.
 The Common Core Standards for literacy increase the reading of non-fiction and decrease the reading of fiction, and eliminate
goals of relating student feelings to a reading selection or writing about their feelings.
 Public schools were established to benefit the public and not necessarily the individual.
 The founding of public schools from the 1820s to the 1840s was concerned with instilling common moral and political values.
 Education was believed to be the key to giving everyone an equal opportunity to gain wealth.
 From the 1880s to the 1920s, industrialization, urbanization, and increased immigration turned public schools into welfare
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agencies that extended their reach to something called the “whole child” which included a concern about the health, family and
neighborhood conditions affecting students.
 The teaching of multiculturalism and racial harmony was highlighted in schools, as indicated in Figure 1.1, during the civil rights
movement from the 1950s to the 1980s.
 Today, a major goal of education is to increase economic growth and prepare students for jobs in the global economy.
 Public schools in the U.S. were originally charged to educate qualified leadership for a republican government.
 Thomas Jefferson’s 1779 Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge advocated three years of public education for all
non-slave children.
 American social thought is ingrained with the idea that schooling provides the best means of identifying democratic leadership.
Implicit within this idea is the belief that the educational system is fair in its judgments.
 Thomas Jefferson proposed a very limited education for the general citizenry.
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 Horace Mann wanted schools to instill a common political creed in all students. Mann felt that without commonly held political
beliefs, society was doomed to political strife and chaos.
 Commonly held political values would curtail political violence and revolution as well as maintain political order. For Mann, the
important idea was that all children in society attend the same type of school, where children of all religions and social classes
could obtain a common education.
 Horace Mann believed that common schools could teach generally accepted basic principles of a republican form of government.
 Mann assumed that there was agreement as to the general nature of these common political values and that teaching these
common values would maintain the political order necessary to the survival of the United States government.
 Some argue that teaching of political ideas is a method of maintaining the political power of those in control of government.
William Godwin warned against national systems of education because they could become a means by which those controlling
government could control the minds of future citizens.
 Educational leaders can use socialization as a powerful means of political control. Learning to obey school rules is a means of
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socializing students to obey government laws.
 Johann Fichte recommended teaching patriotic songs, national history, and literature to increase a sense of dedication and
patriotism to the government. In the 1890s, school emphasized patriotic exercises and school spirit in order to “Americanize”
immigrants from southern and eastern Europe.
 The Pledge of Allegiance was written by Francis Bellamy in 1892 as a means of uniting the public in patriotic loyalty. In the
1950s, U.S. leaders concerned with the role of religion in government added the phrase “under God” to the original Pledge.
Recent debates question whether these words violate constitutional freedom of religion.
 Service learning has gained additional prominence as part of citizenship education with some school systems requiring
community service.
 Textbooks, a traditional means of instilling political values, are causes of conflict regarding which values should be included. The
state of Texas is currently the major determiner of the content of textbooks, because it is one of the major buyers of textbooks in
the country.
 In 2003, the Texas board of education rejected the textbook Environmental Science: Creating a Sustainable Future (6th edition)
by David D. Chiras for “promoting radical policies” and being “anti–free enterprise, and anti-American.” In 2002, the board
rejected Pearson Prentice Hall’s history text Out of Many: A History of the American People because of political objections to its
content, including references to contraception and the gay rights movement.
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 The Texas Board of Education voted in 2010 to approve social studies standards emphasizing conservative political values and
the role of Christianity in American history.
 Court cases involving the free speech clause of the First Amendment have affected educational policies.
 In Board of Island Union Free School District v. Pico, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized the power of school boards to
determine the content of school libraries as long as their decisions were based upon educational suitability and not upon partisan
or political motives.
 In Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that students are protected by the free
speech clause of the First Amendment.
 Tinker did provide that students’ free speech rights may be limited if there is a possibility that the educational process will be
disrupted.
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 In Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlemier, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that school administrators have the right to control the
content of school-sponsored publications because they are part of the curriculum.
 The rights of a school district to punish speech it deemed to be lewd and indecent were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in
Bethel v. Fraser.
 In West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that expulsion from school of Jehovah’s
Witnesses for not saluting the flag was a violation of their constitutional right to freedom of religion.
 The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 requires states to create curriculum standards to guide instruction in local public schools.
After his election in 2009, President Barack Obama implemented efforts to create national standards that would provide
uniformity between state standards.
 The most contentious issue in creating standards is history because of its explicit and implicit reflection of political values.
 Another area in which conflicts between political values and educational standards arise has to do with the teaching of
evolutionary theory. Antievolutionary groups in Kansas, Ohio, and Georgia have lobbied for the inclusion of creationism along
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with evolutionary theory in public-school science classes.
 One could argue that because of public schooling’s emphasis on the importance of voting, voter participation should increase with
school attendance. However, statistics show this is not the case.
 In 1999 the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) assessed the civic knowledge of ninth
grade students in 29 countries. American students ranked sixth compared to students in the other nations. But this does not seem
to create a disposition to actively engage in political activities.
 The IEA study also showed that American students have a primarily passive concept of citizenship—respect and obedience—
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rather than one of actively engaging in civic and political life.
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