How Kappan has discussed the meaning and mission of public schooling 

In the October 1931 issue of Kappan, Daniel Eginton, a researcher at the Connecticut State Board of Education, noted that in the 19th century, most Americans came to believe that they could not rely upon church-run schools to create the literate citizenry that our democracy requires, and that “schools must be supported from public taxation; be non-sectarian, free, compulsory, and universal; and, that education is the function of the state” (p. 66).  

However, added Eginton, while advocates made a clear case for shifting educational authority from church to state, they never defined precisely how that state authority ought to function. “The time has come,” he argued,