Chapter 4

The Ideology and Politics of the Common School

Three Distinctive Features of the Common School Movement:

1. Educating all children in a common school house, no matter what ones’ religious, social, or ethnic background. So there would be a decline in hostility and friction among social groups. This would also decrease social and political ideology if children were educated the same.

2. Using school as an instrument of government policy. The common school was to be a remedy for society’s problems.

3. The creation of state agencies to control local schools. Needed if schools were going to carry out political, social, or economic policies.

These 3 distinct features of the common school movement reflected beliefs about the social and political role of education, beliefs that had been gaining support during the early 19^th century.

The Whigs and the Democrats

The Whigs believed:

--Government intervention and centralized supervision by state governments in schools.

--If schools were maintained and supervised by the government, there would be an educational system that taught social and political duties, and reduce conflicts between social classes and political groups.

The Democrats believed:

--That social order would occur naturally and believed in minimal government intervention and local control of schools.

--The government governed too much and that economy should function without state intervention.

Conflicts:

--Religion, and the bible, what to teach in school about these things, and if they should teach them

--Political issues, what to teach and how to teach these views

--Social and economic tensions between people