Were common schools truly common?

David Labaree convincingly argues that between the 19th century and the present, our nation’s educational ideals have shifted from an emphasis on creating citizens, which was central to the founding of the Common School movement, to a narrow focus on private educational gain, mainly benefiting the wealthy and well connected. In describing the phenomenon, he says,

“At a deeper level, as we have privatized our vision of public schooling, we have shown a willingness to back away from the social commitment to the public good that motivated the formation of the American republic and the common school system. We have grown all too comfortable in allowing the fate of other people’s children to be determined by the unequal competition among consumers for social advantage through schooling.”

I admire Labaree’s passion for a shared and expansive vision of educational access. However, I also wonder why he neglects to point out that his narrative about the origins of the common schools applies primarily to White male citizens of means. Women, Latinos, Native Americans, and Black people, for example, tend to have a very complicated relationship to the very concept of citizenship upon which the Common School movement was based. To turn our attention to their histories is to raise the possibility that the nation’s educational ideals haven’t shifted quite as seismically as Labaree would suggest. Education has always been about winners and losers, the advantaged and the less so. Opportunity hoarding and the pursuit of private gain were very much part of the early chapters of American education.