A Brief History of Education in the United States

How the new nation of the United States managed in the short span of a half-century to attain the status of the best-educated country in the world is a rather involved tale. Until the midnineteenth century most elementary education was offered in "common schools" that were publicly operated but often not completely publicly funded. In some districts, parents received a "rate bill" for their children's education. Elsewhere, part of the term was publicly funded and the rate bill supported an extended term. In large cities, such as New York City, there were, early on, pauper schools paid for by public funds and private schools for the more fortunate. The details are complicated by the highly local nature of education in the United States. What is perfectly clear, however, is that virtually every state in the nation shifted to publicly funded education at the elementary or common school level in the decades following the American Civil War.