Common Schools Movement

Religion

Before the common schools movement, there were colonial schools. In 1637 Puritans had founded schools to encourage literacy for the purposes of Bible reading, and schools incorporated Christian Protestantism into their curricula with daily Protestant Bible reading and texts such as the New-England Primer. One of the stated aims of the common schools movement was to make schools secular and eliminate religious sectarianism. Mann and many of the early school reformers were Unitarians, and espoused a nonspecific Protestant Christianity, calling for explicitly “nonsectarian” schools, but also schools that would educate students to be “good Christians.” Mann experienced opposition from two religious groups. Roman Catholic leaders wanted public tax dollars to support Catholic parochial schools, especially given the Protestantism of the ostensibly nonsectarian schools. He also experienced opposition from evangelical Protestant Christian leaders, who wanted Mann to explain what he meant by Christian and whether his schools would include important Christian doctrines such as salvation. The legacies of these two dissenting religious views persist today in the approximately 10% of the U.S. population that attends Catholic and evangelical parochial schools, and in the school voucher movement, which would provide families with vouchers that would help fund the school of their choice, including parochial schools.

Governance

The second stated aim of the common school was to create democratic citizens. The 1830s were only a generation after the War of 1812, and many hoped that the common school would result in a stronger republic, both because its graduates would be more educated, and thus able to make better decisions; and because they would share common values. The issue then as now, however, was how schools should be governed and at what level. Common schools were governed by local school boards with some state oversight. In 1840 the Massachusetts state legislature tried to abolish Mann's Board of Education, partly to reduce bureaucracy and expense, and partly because they were concerned that too much state governance would impinge on local school boards' freedom, especially in small rural areas. Some felt that it was inherently undemocratic for the state to be so involved in public education, which they felt was ultimately the responsibility of students' families. While the measure eventually failed, its motivating principle of resisting governmental interference in education echoes in current movements against state or national curriculum standards or to abolish the U.S. Department of Education.

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