A cultural history of media that were "new media" in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries.

"A statue of Horace Mann, erected in front of the Boston State House in 1863, declares him the "Father of the American Public School System." For over a century and a half, most narratives about early American education have proceeded as if this epithet were true. It has been etched into the general American consciousness as surely as it has been etched into the stone pedestal on which Mann stands. As Mann looms over the Boston Common, so he has loomed over discussions of early American schooling. The Common School Awakening offers a new narrative about the rise of public schools in America. The story begins before Horace Mann ever entered the scene as the first Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education. In the first half of the nineteenth century a broad and distinctly American religious consensus emerged, allowing people from across the religious spectrum to cooperate in systematizing and professionalizing America's schools, all in an effort to Christianize the country. At the height of this movement, several states introduced state-sponsored teacher training colleges and concentrated government oversight of schools in offices such as the one held by Mann. Shortly thereafter, the religious consensus that had served as the foundation for this common school system disintegrated. But the system itself remained, the legacy not just of one man, but of a whole network of reformers who put into motion a transatlantic and transdenominational religious movement - the "Common School Awakening.""--

From the INTRODUCTION. The present school system of the city of New York is the result of growth and unification extending over a period of nearly a century, from the organization of the Free School Society in 1805 to the reorganization of the schools of the greater System city in 1902. During nearly half of that period public elementary education was administered by a corporation not responsible to the people. From the establishment of the Board of Education in 1842 to its absorption of the Public School Society in 1853, two distinct systems existed. The formation of the greater city of New York in 1898 involved great extension and new readjustment. To the school system of the former city of New York, now the Borough of Manhattan and the Borough of the Bronx, there were added two city school systems, those of Brooklyn and Long Island City, and thirty-five school districts in the Borough of Queens and twenty-nine in the Borough of Richmond. Complete unification of these diverse elements was not accomplished until the charter of 1901 went into effect. In 1805, for a population of more than 75,000, the only facilities for elementary education were provided by private, church, and charity schools, with one hundred and forty-one teachers, of whom one hundred and six were men and thirty-five were women. A school for colored children, the African Free School, had been opened in 1787 by the Manumission Society; and a school for girls, in 1801, by the Association of Women Friends for the Relief of the Poor, generally known as the Female Association. The schools of these associations were later taken over by the Public School Society; those of the Manumission Society in 1834, and of the Female Association in 1845. The purpose of the Free School Society, of which De Witt Clinton was the first president and the largest contributor, was, as stated in their first address to the public, "to extend the means of education to such poor children as do not belong to, or are not provided for, by any religious society." The first school was opened in 1806. In 1826, owing to the desire to admit pay pupils, the name of the association was changed to the Public School Society. At this time the schools of the Society numbered twenty-one, with 6007 pupils, while the number of children between the ages of five and fifteen, who attended no school whatever, was estimated at 20,000....

How a con artist "reformer" shaped America's modern public schools. Two centuries ago, London school reformer Joseph Lancaster swept into New York City to revolutionize its public schools. Pennsylvania and Massachusetts passed laws mandating Lancaster's methods, and cities such as Albany, Savannah, Detroit, and Baltimore soon followed. In Mr. Lancaster's System, Adam Laats tells the story of how this abusive, scheming reformer fooled the world into believing his system could provide free high-quality education for poor children. The system never worked as promised, but thanks to real work done by students, teachers, and families, Lancaster's failed reforms eventually led to the creation of the modern public school system. Lancaster's idea was simple: instead of hiring expensive adult teachers, Lancasterian schools made children teach one another to read, write, and behave properly. America's city leaders poured the equivalent of millions of dollars into the scheme, built specialized school buildings featuring Lancaster's teaching machines, and offered him a huge salary. In London, where Lancaster opened his first school, the enthusiasm of city leaders was quickly and similarly followed by scandal and dismay. Lancaster borrowed money—even from the king of England—and spent it on fancy carriage rides and cases of champagne. Even worse, Lancaster proved to be a sexual predator. Kicked out of London, Lancaster brought his simplistic plan to the United States. His school model didn't work any better in US cities than it had in London, and Lancaster himself never changed his abusive ways. Mr. Lancaster's System details how American cities created their first public schools out of the wreckage of Lancasterian failure. In the end, the most important people in this story are not self-proclaimed geniuses like Lancaster or elites like New York's mayor De Witt Clinton, but rather the thousands of parents and children who forced urban public schools to assume their modern shape.

This current, comprehensive history of American education is designed to stimulate critical analysis and critical thinking by offering alternative interpretations of each historical period. In his signature straight-forward, concise style, Joel Spring provides a variety of interpretations of American schooling, from conservative to leftist, in order to spark the reader’s own critical thinking about history and schools. This tenth edition follows the history of American education from the seventeenth century to the integration into global capitalism of the twenty-first century to the tumultuous current political landscape. In particular, the updates focus on tracing the direct religious links between the colonial Puritans and the current-day Trump administration. Chapters 1 and 2 have been rewritten to take a closer look at religious traditions in American schools, leading up to the educational ideas of the current U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. An updated Chapter 15 further links traditional religious fundamentalist ideas and the twentieth century free market arguments of the Chicago school of economists to President Trump’s administration and the influence of the Alt-Right.