Did the Government Ever Want to Educate Your Child?
- Mike Brown
- Sep 8, 2025
- 3 min read
By Michael Aaron Brown, M.A., CBPI, CAMS-I
When we talk about public education, people can or may assume the government always wanted to educate children. But if we look at the history honestly, the story is very different. The government didn’t wake up one day and say, “We love kids. Let’s design schools to give them every opportunity.”
Instead, public schooling in America developed as a management tool — a way to handle overflow, stabilize society, and protect the economy. Education was part of that process, but it was never the first love. Did the government want to educate your child?
Early Days: Religion and Elites
In colonial New England, schools weren’t for every child. They existed so children could read the Bible and maintain religious conformity (Kaestle, 1983). Wealthy families often hired tutors or sent their children to private academies. Poor families’ children worked. The government wasn’t trying to educate all kids.
Did the Government Want to Educate your Child? The Rise of Compulsory Schooling: Control and Cohesion
Massachusetts passed the first compulsory education law in 1852; Mississippi was the last in 1918 (Tyack, 1974). These laws weren’t about child flourishing. They were about control and social cohesion. Why? To produce literate workers and to discipline immigrant children. Reformers like Horace Mann talked about “common schools” to make America cohesive. It wasn’t, “we love kids and want to teach them everything.” It was, “we need stability and productivity.”
Immigrant children were taught English and “American ways” in common schools. This was assimilation, not enrichment (Tyack & Cuban, 1995).
The 20th Century: Workforce and National Security
After World War II, the Baby Boom produced an unprecedented flood of children. The government responded, not because it adored childhood, but because millions of unschooled kids would destabilize the economy (Bowles & Gintis, 1976).
The Cold War accelerated investment in math and science after Sputnik. Why? To compete militarily and technologically with the Soviet Union (Urban & Wagoner, 2009). Again — education as national security. Head Start, launched in 1965, was part of the War on Poverty. It wasn’t “pure preschool for the joy of learning.” It was a way to manage the destabilizing effects of poverty on society (Zigler & Muenchow, 1992).
The Government as Reluctant Educator
Put simply:
The government has always been a manager of resources more than a philosopher of childhood.
When families produced more children than private tutors or churches could absorb, the state stepped in reactively.
Education became the tool to stabilize overflow and protect the workforce, tax base, and social order.
What This Means for Parents Today
This history matters because it shapes the choices families face right now.
Compulsory schooling means your child must be educated.
But it doesn’t mean your child must be educated in a government-run overflow-reactive system.
That’s a choice.
If you choose public school, understand that you’re entering a system that was built to manage crowds and stabilize the economy, not to nurture every child as an individual.
If you want something different — competence-first environments like Montessori or Reggio Emilia, or homeschooling with planning — you have to prepare for it financially and developmentally.
Bottom Line
So, did the government ever really want to educate your child?
Not in the way you probably imagine. Public schooling grew out of necessity — to control overflow, build workers, and manage social stability.
And that’s why the Overflow–Reactivity Theory of Schooling (ORTS) matters. It names the system for what it is: a reactive structure, not a child-centered one.
The real question isn’t whether the government loves education. The real question is: Do you want your child in that system — or do you want to prepare for something different?
References
Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (1976). Schooling in capitalist America: Educational reform and the contradictions of economic life. Basic Books.
Kaestle, C. F. (1983). Pillars of the Republic: Common schools and American society, 1780–1860. Hill and Wang.
Tyack, D. (1974). The one best system: A history of American urban education. Harvard University Press.
Tyack, D., & Cuban, L. (1995). Tinkering toward utopia: A century of public school reform. Harvard University Press.
Urban, W. J., & Wagoner, J. L. (2009). American education: A history (4th ed.). Routledge.
Zigler, E., & Muenchow, S. (1992). Head Start: The inside story of America’s most successful educational experiment. Basic Books.
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