Maggie's Farm

The myth about public schooling as a national treasure that nurtures our democracy is untrue.:

 Between 1830 and 1840 U.S. immigration quadrupled, and between 1840 and 1850, it tripled again. Particularly troubling to lawmakers at the time was the fact that many of these new immigrants were Irish Catholics who threatened the dominant Anglo-Saxon Protestant cultural and religious customs. "Those now pouring in upon us, in masses of thousands upon thousands, are wholly of another kind in morals and intellect," mourned the Massachusetts state legislature regarding the new Boston immigrants.

Universal, taxpayer-funded “common schools” became the mechanism to rein in these masses and “Americanize” them...