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March 13, 2025
This Is NOT The First Time The Federal Department Of Education Has Been Reduced To An Absolute Minimum - Historical Foundations For The Failure Of Public Education
Education has been a mainstay around the world and throughout time. In the past, schooling took place in the home, on the job, and/or in the religious realm. Wikipedia provides a succinct history of pre-modern-age education throughout the world:
The history of education, like other history, extends at least as far back as the first written records recovered from ancient civilizations. Historical studies have included virtually every nation. The earliest known formal school was developed in Egypt's Middle Kingdom under the direction of Kheti, treasurer to Mentuhotep II (2061-2010 BC). In ancient India, education was mainly imparted through the Vedic and Buddhist education system, while the first education system in ancient China was created in Xia dynasty (20761600 BC). In the city-states of ancient Greece, most education was private . . . The first schools in Ancient Rome arose by the middle of the 4th century BC. In Europe, during the Early Middle Ages, the monasteries of the Roman Catholic Church were the centers of education and literacy, preserving the Church's selection from Latin learning and maintaining the art of writing. In the Islamic civilization that spread all the way between China and Spain during the time between the 7th and 19th centuries, Muslims started schooling from 622 in Medina, which is now a city in Saudi Arabia, schooling at first was in the mosques (masjid in Arabic) but then schools became separate in schools next to mosques. . . . Most schools during this era were founded upon religious principles with the primary purpose of training the clergy. [Emphasis added]
. . . children were often taught by church schools, schools organized by towns or parents, traveling school masters, charities, boarding schools, Dame schools (run by women in their own home), private tutoring, home schooling, and work apprenticeships. These educational opportunities were dependent upon funds that were charged to parents and charitable contributions. Some rural areas had no schools at all. Plus, no state had compulsory education laws. [Meaning students were not forced to attend school.]
The Puritans decreed that reading and critical thinking were necessary for their children to be able to read and understand the Bible. Therefore, they set up the first schools in the nation shortly after their arrival in Massachusetts in 1630. Because this country was founded on religious freedom, each church that provided schooling included religious education in addition to whatever other subjects they determined were necessary to understanding the Bible and to their community. Prior to 1800, the United States was considered the most highly educated country in the world.
National Geographic tells us first public school for boys only in America was opened April 23, 1635 by the Puritans in the Fenway area of Boston, Massachusetts. It was originally called Boston Latin School and it is still operating today for grades 7-12 albeit in a different location in Boston. They finally admitted girls in 1972. It was strictly college prep, focused on humanities, and modeled after the Free Grammar School located in Boston, England.
Public schools were presented as opportunities to enforce one set of values onto all demographics. Prior to establishing government-funded public schools, schools were religious in nature and each religion thought the others were blasphemous towards their own religion. The last straw was when Harvard removed their founding Calvinistic tenants in 1805 when the Unitarianists finally managed to take over the school. These Unitarians believed salvation was attained through a government-controlled education where reason-based moral perfectibility would prevail (communism anyone?). A little over 100 years later, these Unitarians became dominant and began to be called progressives putting their faith into science, evolution, and psychology. Public schools were to emphasize work ethic, productivity, respect for authority, respect for rigid process, competitiveness, and social uniformity. Boarding schools became mandatory for Native American (and sometimes other minority) children to force assimilation and eradicate native customs and language.
Compulsory Education Laws - force the children to attend public school
As far back as ancient Judea, Jewish religious leaders were requiring parents educate their sons well enough to be able to read holy texts. Some historians say the Aztec Triple Alliance of modern-day" central Mexico in the 1400s/1500s were the first to make education mandatory for all children. Scotland mandated education for privileged families in 1496, adding mandatory education for commoners via the School Establishment Act of 1616. Many countries around the world then began to set up systems emulating what Prussia set up in 1763. The U.S. Constitution, however, does not mandate education of any kind.
Horace Mann, 1837 Secretary of Education for Massachusetts, was instrumental in the passing of the first compulsory schooling law in Massachusetts in 1852. Ellwood P Cubberley states:
No one did more than he to establish in the minds of the American people the conception that education should be universal, non-sectarian, free, and that its aims should be social efficiency, civic virtue, and character, rather than mere learning or the advancement of sectarian ends. [Emphasis added]Public Education In The United States : Cubberley, Ellwood. P : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : InternetArchive
This law, Massachusetts law 76 1, et seq., mandated all children attend free universal schooling with exceptions for work and religious beliefs. Home schooling was still allowed provided the parents complied with the educational standards set for public and state-accredited private schools. Many states followed Massachusetts lead on establishing and mandating a public school education for all children.
Federal Department of Education is created in 1867
The first time a federal Department of Education was established was 1867. Its job was to collect facts that show the condition and progress of education in the states and territories of the United States. After about a year, Congress voted to relegate it to an office in the Department of the Interior and renamed it Office of Education. It has also been called the Bureau of Education.
Creation of the Private Sector's General Education Board 1902-1914
Three major companies got together and decided that public education should be providing workers for their businesses. The Puritans original goal of reading and critical thinking became meet the needs of industrialists who did NOT want thinkers or innovators. They wanted unquestioning rule followers to work in factories. Three corporations created Foundations that were critical in shaping public schools: Ford Foundation (Ford Motors), Rockefeller Foundation (Standard Oil), and Carnegie Foundation (Carnegie Steel Company). Rockefeller created the General Education Board (a non-governmental entity) to provide major funding for schools and teacher training. Officers and members of the board were listed as: William H Baldwin, Jr., Robert C Ogden, Frederick T Gates, Wallace Buttrick, William H Heck, Eben Charles Sage, Abraham Flexner, George Foster Peabody, Louis G Myers, L M Dashell, Jabez L M Curry, Daniel C Gilman, Morris K Jesup, and Walter H Page. These 14 men took control of the burgeoning public school system and twisted the original intent of education (reading and critical thinking) into fulfill the needs of corporations. The boards mission was
In our dreamspeople yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. . . . We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen,of whom we haveample supply.
. . . a long, multi-faceted attempt to correct, coercively if needed, the peculiar individualism of the American spirit, and the unprecedented diversity of the American population. Classrooms have been roughly the same for a century: 800 square feet with about 25 desks and a teachers desk off to some corner. All students look in the same direction, staying in rank and file rows unless they ask to be excused andthen wait for permission. They move from one out-of-context, time-consuming task to the next, mastering the skill of staring blankly while appearing to pay attention, until the bell rings to dismiss them. This curriculum of compliancemustbe learned. Those who, for whatever reason, cannot comply with the minimum level of obedience and conformity, are labeled drop outs and become stigmatized as an economic underclass.In each iteration, the insidious energy is the same: standardize American children into a single, acceptable, cookie-cutter model. And like any rigid cookie cutter, theres a lot of waste that gets cut off and tossed away. [Emphasis added]
The re-establishment of a Federal Department of Education shifted the purpose and nature of local public schools to a means to achieve important economic and social goals of a national character. The purpose of compulsory state-run education, from the start, was to enforce uniformity of thought, and to so train the entire population to act in conformity with expert edicts and government control.
Between 1970 and 1980, Critical Race Theory (CRT) became prominent in education. CRT is based on the idea that racism is systemic to a society as well as to a person. It infiltrated education starting in 1995 espousing the idea of victimization and oppression based on race. Later the CRT proponents added gender, sex, socio-economic standard, and whatever else they could use to espouse oppression and victimization.
In 1981, Ronald Reagan said By eliminating the Department of Education less than two years after it was created, we cannot only reduce the budget but ensure that local needs and preferences, rather than the wishes of Washington, determine the education of our children. Unfortunately, he was not supported by Congress in this stance, and the newly re-formed Department of Education marched merrily along in their efforts to destroy education in the US.
By 2010, the Common Core State Standards Initiative aka Common Core was introduced. This core determined what every teacher should be teaching at every level in k-12 education with instructionto only teach the standards, never beyond them. Teachers were NOT to deviate from the script. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2015 prohibited the Department of Education from interfering in whether or not states adopted the common core curriculum. Of the states that have agreed to common core 1 withdrew from consideration, 8 repealed their agreement, 1 partially adopted the core, and 4 never joined.
The Federal Department of Education was created 158 years ago and within 1 year was relegated to the Department of the Interior becoming first an office then a bureau within the department. The public sector took over public education 123 years ago turning education from creating people who could read and critically think to people who are unquestioning rule followers for manufacturers to employ. The Federal Department of Education was re-established 60 years ago, revised again 24 years ago, and further modified 10 years ago. The only thing that has been accomplished is that our students fall further and further behind their peers in other countries.Obviously something is not working.
Shuttering the Federal Department of Education is an excellent start. Returning education to the states needs to be considered an interim process. The ultimate goal needs to be putting PARENTS back in control of their childs education.
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