What You Should Demand of Our Schools: The Aim of Education

September 13, 2018|Bradley Conrad, PhD

Since the advent of the common school and even before, much has been written about what the aim of schooling should be for our children. What is it that we mean when we say we are “educating” children in schools? If one were to look to public policy in education, school and district mission statements, and how we measure quality schools, one can gain a clearer picture of what it is valued in an “education.” Much like in any organization, it is imperative for public schools, and for that matter parents and community members, to take stock of the vision, mission, and goals of our schools. It is the purpose of this article to first examine how the current aim of education evolved, to explore what our current aims are, and then to consider what aims we might strive for in providing world class educations for our children.

The Aims Evolution

Though public schooling in some form could be found in America before his time, Horace Mann is considered the father of American public education as we know it. Beginning in the late 1830s as Secretary of Education, he gave birth to what is known as the common school movement, which offered tax-funded public education intended to be equitable for all. Mann saw the common school as a “great equalizer,” which laid the…