School Acts and the Rise of Mass Schooling

Educating all children: a …, 2006

This paper explores the historical bases of the idea of universal education and of efforts to realize this goal, as well as the conditions that facilitated (or hindered) these in different times and places. It seeks to move beyond existing avenues of scholarly inquiry and sketches out an alternative strategy for a comparative historical study of universal education. By identifying key analytical components of the contemporary conception of mass schooling and examining their historical emergence, this paper focuses on the diverse antecedents of existing models of universal education and revisits the unique pathways and divergent outcomes of past models. We liken our strategy to standing over a rich and flavorful “educational” broth, in which the initially distinct and numerous ingredients have settled to the bottom of the pot. We wish to stir up and reexamine the savory (and often forgotten) ingredients lying at the base of the soup cauldron, which are perceived as having fused together into a standard framework of universal education. By doing so, we hope to raise new questions and ideas, which are relevant to current policy debates on universal education.

In this paper we review the nineteenth-century origins of the contemporary approach to primary education provision. As we trace the spread of mass primary education in Europe as well as in other regions of the world we come to conclusion that this was a truly global phenomenon of a planetary-scale importance. Moreover, the expansion of the mass education contributed significantly to another global phenomenon – the emergence of nation-states.

2007

Three factors help to explain why school enrollments in the Northern United States were higher than those in the South and in most of Europe by 1850. One was affordability: the northern states had higher real incomes, cheaper teachers, and greater local tax support. The second was the greater autonomy of local governments. The third was the greater diffusion of voting power among the citizenry in much of the North, especially in rural communities. The distribution of local political voice appears to be a robust predictor of tax support and enrollments, both within and between regions.

Paedagogica Historica, 2005

History of Education, 2020

This chapter details simplified versions of neoliberalism, existentialism, and postmodernism as a means of grounding the late twentieth century philosophically. It examines major shifts in public schools, including increasing security in post-Columbine schools, the increase in federal intervention with the No Child Left Behind and Every Student Succeeds Acts, and the Common Core movement. It concludes with a discussion on the educational legacies of this period and recommendations for further reading.

From my dissertation, where APA in-text citations and a corresponding reference section can be found., 2017

This article is part of a project that critically analyzes the historical and present day purposes of U.S. public education. Related articles focus on the history of Secondary Education, the undemocratic nature of Local Control and the finacialization of education via Impact Investing, Social Impact Bonds and Personalized Learning. The point of this project is to further expose the underlying social control function of U.S. public education and the interests it has consistently served over time, which cannot be extracted from the undemocratic nation-state it was designed – and continually redesigned – to preserve.

British Journal of Educational Studies

The Wiley Handbook of School Choice, 2017

From my dissertation, 2017

This article is part of a project that critically analyzes the historical and present day purposes of U.S. public education. Related articles focus on the history of Common Schools, the undemocratic nature of Local Control and the finacialization of education via Social Impact Bonds and Personalized Learning. The point of this project is to further expose the underlying social control function of U.S. public education and the interests it has consistently served over time, which cannot be extracted from the undemocratic nation-state it was designed – and continually redesigned – to preserve.

Reviews in American History, 2016

Perhaps no one put it better than Ellwood Cubberley who, during the first half of the twentieth century, was America's best-known education historian. Cubberley had attended common schools in Indiana, taught school, and served as superintendent in San Diego, before becoming an education professor at Stanford in 1898 and receiving his doctorate from Teachers College. In his 1919 Public Education in the United States, written for normal-school students, Cubberley laid down a moral tale. He was on the side of the school reformers. His story told of the heroic efforts of Horace Mann and others to overcome ignorance and resistance to achieve something great: public school systems. As Cubberley put it: The battle for taxation for education; the battle to eliminate the pauper-school idea; the battle to do away with the rate bill and the fuel tax, and make the schools entirely free; the battle to establish supervision; the battle to eliminate sectarianism; the battle to extend and complete the system by adding the high school and the state university; the struggle to establish normal schools, and begin the training of teachers; the gradual evolution of the graded system of instruction; and the opening of instruction to all grades of women;-these are the great milestones in our early educational history which are of real importance for the beginning student of education to know. 1