==History==
===Religious origins===
In 1647, [[Massachusetts]] [[Puritans]] enacted the second law, after Scotland in 1616,<ref>The Social, Economic & Political Reasons for the Decline of Gaelic in Scotland [http://www.scottishhistory.com/articles/highlands/gaelic/gaelic_page1.html]</ref> establishing universal public [[school]]s in the English-speaking world to block the attempts by "ould deluder Satan to keepe men from the whole knowledge of the Scriptures".<ref>''Family Encyclopedia of American History'' (Reader's Digest 1975)</ref> Each settlement larger than 50 families was required to pay a [[teacher|schoolmaster]] to teach reading, writing and religious doctrine to the [[children]] in the community. Beginning in 1670, Massachusetts provided [[taxation|tax]] funding for school maintenance. This model was then copied throughout the colonies, and even throughout the world.
====Curricula Used====According to [[Noah Webster]], "the books used were chiefly or whole Dilworth's Spelling Books, the Psalter, Testament and Bible".<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DYVX2qf5xIAC&pg=PA118|last1=Gutjahr|first1=Paul C.|title=An American Bible: A History of the Good Book in the United States, 1777-1880|date=1999|work=[[Stanford University]] Press|pages=118}}</ref> Other sources such as the U.S. Office of Education note the following books used: The ABC, the Horn Book, the New England Primer, the Bible, Catechisms, and the Psalters.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gwENAAAAIAAJ&pg=RA8-PA19|title=Statistics of Land-grant Colleges and Universities, Volume 1, Issues 1-26|date=1921|work=Office of Education|pages=18-19}}</ref> ''[[The New England Primer]]'' is of particular note given its widespread use over such a long period of time.<ref name=encyclopedia>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e6YoCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA874|title=Encyclopedia of Christian Education, Volume 3|date=2015|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|pages=874}}</ref> The ''Primer'', also known as ''The Little Bible'', was in use in schools for over 150 years.<ref>[http://www.britannica.com/topic/The-New-England-Primer The New-England Primer], [[Encyclopedia Britannica]]</ref> ===Importation of the Prussian Model===In the mid 19th century, [[Horace Mann]], an early education reformer, studied the methods of [[Prussian Education]] and brought them back to the [[United States]]. According to [[John Dewey]]:{{cquote|Horace Mann and the disciples of [[Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi|Pestalozzi]] did their peculiar missionary work so completely as intellectually to crowd the conservative to the wall. For half a century after their time the ethical emotion, the bulk of exhortation, the current formulae and catchwords, the distinctive principles of theory have been found on the side of progress, of what is known as reform. The supremacy of self-activity, the symmetrical development of all the powers, the priority of character to information, the necessity of putting the real before the symbol, the concrete before the abstract, the necessity of following the order of nature and not the order of human convention - all these ideas, at the outset so revolutionary, have filtered into the pedagogic consciousness and become the commonplace of pedagogic writing and of the gatherings where teachers meet for inspiration and admonition.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JXkBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA332|last1=Dewey|first1=John|title=Journal of Proceedings and Addresses|date=1901|work=[[National Education Association]]}}</ref>}}Mann would travel to [[Prussia]] in 1843 to visit the schools and study them.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UrxSUMN4-FsC&pg=PA224|last1=Karier|first1=Clarence J.|title=The Individual, Society, and Education: A History of American Educational Ideas|date=1986|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=978-0252013096|quote="In 1843, it was these Pestalozzian practices which so impressed Horace Mann on his visit to the Prussian Schools.}}</ref> ====Secularization====According to historian Ellwood Cubberly:{{cquote|He(Horace Mann) will always be regarded as perhaps the greatest of the "founders" of our American system of free public schools. No one did more than he to establish in the minds of the American people the conception that education should be universal, non-sectarian, and free, and that its aim should be social efficiency, civic virtue, and character, rather than mere learning or the advancement of sectarian ends.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J_tEAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA167|last1=Cubberley|first1=Ellwood. P|title=Public Education in the United States: A Study and Interpretation of American Educational History; an Introductory Textbook Dealing with the Larger Problems of Present-day Education in the Light of Their Historical Development|date=1919}}</ref>}} John Dewey regarded Horace Mann as the "patron saint of progressive education."<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t7QTC8NuGL8C&pg=PA181|last1=Dewey|first1=John|title=The Later Works, 1925-1953: 1935-1937|publisher=SIU Press|date=1987}}</ref> ===20th century===Many children did not attend public school for the first two centuries. It was not until 1852 that Massachusetts became the first state to require attendance <ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7V83obZcnvkC&pg=PA34|last1=Mathison|first1=Sandra|last2=Ross|first2=E. Wayne|title=Battleground : Schools|date=2007|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|quote=""Mann was eventually successful, and in 1852 Massachusetts passed the first compulsory education laws in North America."}}</ref> by students aged 6 through 16, and it was not until 1918 that all states had [[compulsory attendance]] laws. High schools did not generally exist until after the [[Civil War]], and the first American [[kindergarten]] didn't exist until 1856 in Watertown, Wisconsin.
==Views on morals==
===Teaching the Bible in Public Schools ===
The [[National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools]]<ref>http://www.bibleinschools.net/</ref> (NCBCPS) provides a program for teaching the Bible in public schools. Currently, the NCBCPS's Bible curriculum has been voted into 462 school districts (over 1,900 high schools) in 38 states. Over 210,000 students have already taken this course nationwide, on the high school campus, during school hours, for credit.
===Teaching of Islam in the public schools===
Public school textbooks have been found to be portraying [[Islam]] in a positive light. Some world history textbooks in [[Florida]] claim ''Muslims profess to worship the same God as Christians and Jews'', women historically had more rights in the Islamic world than the Christian world, and [[Jihad]] is not a violent movement, among other falsehoods. These lies have caused patriots some areas of the state to complain to local school boards, but not much has been done by the boards to actually remove the Islamic propaganda.
==Gender Disparity==
==Suppression and intolerance of alternative views==
[[Activist judges]] have proclaimed that teaching [[creationism]]<ref>https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/482/578/case.html</ref> and [[intelligent design]]<ref>www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller/kitzmiller_342.pdf</ref> in public schools is unconstitutional because they claim that such teachings would amount to a government establishment of religion, which is prohibited by the First Amendment.<ref>''See'' ''Kitzmiller'', 400 F.Supp.2d at 765</ref>Hypocritically, nothing has been done to remove the religions of Secular Humanism and Islam from the schools.
==Educational outcomes==
==See Also==
*[[Public school culture]]*[[Teacher Pay]]*[[Atheism and public schools]]*[[Parental rights]] (focusing on the rights of parents to control the education, upbringing and disclipline discipline of their children)* [[Homeschooling]]* [[Politically correct]] [[Indoctrination]] by Public schools in the United States and [[Common Core]] [[Public school values]], [[Professor values]], [[Liberal values]], [[Hollywood values]], [[Fashion industry values]], [[San Francisco values]], and [[Gun control]] [[Propaganda]]* [[Teacup Generation]]: [[Dumb down|Dumbing down]] and the [[entitlement mentality]]* [[United States Department of Education]]: [[Common Core]], [[No Child Left Behind]], [[Race to the Top]]* [[Teacher Pay]] and the [[Teachers' unions]]: [[National Education Association]] and [[American Federation of Teachers]]* [[Labor union]] [[leftist]] [[lobbying]] and [[Collective bargaining]]* [[Big Government]]-[[Welfare State]]-[[Nanny State]]-[[Police state]]: [[Globalist]]-[[Statist]]-[[Socialist]]-[[Communist]]*[[Education in the United Kingdom]]* [[Ronald Reagan High School]]* [[Essay:Worst Liberal Falsehoods in School]]* [[Gun free zone]]
==References==
*[http://beforeitsnews.com/story/1610/466/Dumb_As_A_Rock:_You_Will_Be_Absolutely_Amazed_At_The_Things_That_U.S._High_School_Students_Do_Not_Know.html Dumb As A Rock: You Will Be Absolutely Amazed At The Things That U.S. High School Students Do Not Know]
*[http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2012/03/28/9-notorious-teacher-sex-scandals/?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000058?test=latestnews 8 Bizarre Teacher Scandals You Won't Believe]
[[Category : Gun Free Zones]]