Public Schools Were Not Inevitable
Adam Harris on what American education owes to 19th-century abolitionists and reformers
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America’s public schools owe a great deal to the efforts of 19th-century abolitionists and reformers. In a new story for ’s special issue on Reconstruction, my colleague Adam Harris about how Reconstruction shaped America’s modern public-education system. Reformers in the South such as Mary Brice worked to realize the then-radical notion that free, universal schools should serve all students. I called Adam this week to discuss the backlash faced by early efforts to build public schools, and how that opposition is still embedded in
