The Nature of the American Educational System Term Paper

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Introduction

All significant approaches to educational development are always multi-faceted endeavors with several aspects, decisions, dimensions, and alternatives that have to be considered. Since education is a sector that brings many people in society together, any alternatives arrived at should be agreed upon by the majority and common ground reached. Also, because education has different levels in society, the alternatives chosen must be consistent with and align with other alternatives at different levels. While the Federal government has a significant influence on education, education as far as policy and implementation is concerned is highly decentralized in the United States (Barnhardt, 1981). The United States Constitution’s 10th amendment provides that all powers that are not explicitly delegated by the constitution to the United States or those that are not prohibited by the constitution to the states shall be reserved to the people and the states. Education, being one of these matters, allows the states to wield a lot of power on schooling and educational systems in the United States of America. The federal government does not provide a national framework for education and neither does it have a general authority on the creation and execution of educational policy at the state level. It does not provide licenses to schools and neither does it establish schools. Nonetheless, the federal government still plays an important role in education in other key areas (Spellings, 2005).

The decentralization of the United States education system can be explained by America’s history. The United States was founded from separate colonies that were begun by various European settlers. These colonies tended to have different systems of governance that also covered different ways of administering education. The original United States was founded from 13 former British colonies. Depending on the colony in question, either the local community or the colonial government was responsible for educating its children and adults. Since communities and colonial governments had different priorities, needs, and values, the education systems they used to teach their children and adults were structurally and systematically different from those used in other places. Education was highly localized. Such a history of the localization of education helps explain how states still maintain a lot of control over education policy and the establishment of educational systems in the United States (Spellings, 2005).

Creation of the American Education System

America’s public education system was founded around 1840. The image shared of the American populace before then was that of a dirty and illiterate people. It is not clear whether or not this image is true or false. Nonetheless, it appears that there can rarely be a vacuum in society as far as education is concerned. One way or another, society will find a way to impart knowledge upon its people. This is true of the American population before 1840 too. Before 1840, American communities used decentralized informal education systems. Children were educated in charity schools that were run by benevolent groups, churches, and town councils. Besides the charity schools, there were also dame schools that were run out of homes by women, female seminaries, grammar schools, independent day schools and academics (Lattier, 2016).

For most of human history, learning was done at home. Children were taught by their parents and grandparents. For wealthier families, experienced tutors with specialized knowledge would be brought in to teach the children. This was true in the Americas as well. In America, Puritans were the first people to put forward the idea of having some form of public education. Public schools were then created and the lessons they taught extended beyond the required basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Also taught were important ideas that helped children form core values. Following the American Revolution, Thomas Jefferson put forward the argument that America should have a structured educational system and he suggested using tax to fund such a system. His ideas would not be executed on immediately and it would take almost a century before a system would be put in place. By around 1840, there were countable public schools that had been put up in various communities in the nation. Only the communities that could afford the public schools put them up. Nonetheless, even these schools were inadequate for various persistent crusaders of formal education such as Henry Barnard of Connecticut and Horace Mann of Massachusetts. These crusaders began pushing for the establishment of free and compulsory schools for America’s children all over the nation (Watson, 2019).

In 1852, Massachusetts would become the first jurisdiction to pass the first law that would make school compulsory. It only took a year before New York followed in their lead and made school compulsory.

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By 1918, all children in America were required to have at least some elementary school education. This period of dramatic change would be followed by another revolutionary period that would campaign for all American children to have equal schooling regardless of their race. At the dawn of the 20th century, Southern states still had segregated schools. Plessy v. Ferguson 1896 Supreme Court ruling upheld that segregation in public schools was legal. This would be later overturned by the same Supreme Court in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education. The ruling ended segregation in public schools and made them open to all children no matter their race (Watson, 2019). Formal education refers to the learning of academic concepts and facts through a well-defined formal curriculum. Formal education has been in existence since the age of ancient Greece when Greek thinkers examined various topics through formal learning channels. Just three centuries ago, a very small percentage of the population knew how to read and write. Education was not available for all people. It was mainly available to the higher classes who had the means and free time to pursue education. The establishment of a capitalist system would see significant changes in society’s economic and social dynamics and therefore make education more of a necessity for the population. As education became more of…

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…as the right to vote. American culture deeply values the idea of personal freedom even though personal decisions are still influenced by various social factors such as social class, access to wealth and education, sex, and race. Nonetheless, it is important to appreciate the conflict that people seeking to assimilate into American culture face. While they may have some level of autonomy, to fully integrate and enjoy a way of life that is uniquely American, they have to make decisions in line with what other Americans deem acceptable and right even when their personal belief systems may not be congruent with those lines of thinking. In school, for instance, students tend to conform to the norms that are dominant in the population. These norms are rarely those of minority groups.

Political and social equality: Social equality is a good ideal but it has been very hard to attain. There are inequities that have persisted between various groups in the United States for centuries such as performance gaps in schools between different ethnic, racial, and gender groups. Laws have been put in place to correct some of these inequities. Women have made tremendous progress as a result of such actions. Conversations around political and social equality are becoming stronger and more constructive actions are now likely at both the federal and state level. In America, a person’s inability to rise above their circumstances even when they are facing crumbling hardship has always been attributed to the individual. Lately, as the conversation about political and social equality gathers momentum, people are more willing to appreciate the fact that people who have been disadvantaged for generations may need a helping hand to rise above their stations (Lynch, 2018).

Public and/or private good: Americans view education as both a public and private good. When a person is educated well and he or she becomes a productive member of society, the benefits accrued to the individual spillover to the rest of society. This reality necessitates the intervention of government in education since the education of citizens is a public good. While the government is involved in education, there has always been resistance to public monopolies as far as the delivery of education is concerned. Schooling, therefore, remains a function of the state government and the communities they serve. The argument is that monopolizing education will limit chances for experimentations that can result in more effective education methods and practices (Anomaly, 2018).

Conclusion

Education reform in the United States over the years has always been informed by the fact that besides being a private good, education is a formidable public good. The United States benefits a great deal from having a well-educated population. Governments have also been appreciative of the fact that while education is good when it is funded publicly, its provision should be local and private. This has resulted in increased efficiencies at various levels in the education sector. Without monopolizing the delivery of education, the federal government has been able….....

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