Why America still needs public schools

While the fight of the White House with elite universities such as Columbia and Harvard recently dominated the headlines, the quarrel eclipses the wider and more in -depth assault against public education from kindergarten to 12th year by the Trump administration and many states.

The Trump administration has emptied the Ministry of Education, jeopardizing efforts to protect the civil rights of students and has proposed billions of public education discounts for the year 2026. Meanwhile, the administration diverts billions of taxpayers in private schools from maternal to kindergarten in the 12th year. These movements are based on similar efforts of conservative states to slow down public education dating back decades.

But the consequences of the withdrawal of public education could be disastrous for the United States in our 2024 book, “how the government has built America”, we explore the history of public education, from “Common School Movement” of Horace Mann at the beginning of the 19th century to the gastrointestinal invoice in the 20th which helped millions of veterans global.

We found that public education was essential not only to create an educated workforce, but also to instill the fundamental values ​​of the United States of freedom, equality, equity and the common good.

In the public good

Opponents of public education often call on public schools as “public schools”, a derogatory which seems to associate public education with “great government” – in contradiction with the government’s little preference of many Americans.

But, as we have already explored, the government has always been an important partner with the private market system to achieve the fundamental political values ​​of the country. Public education was an important part of this partnership.

Education is what economists call a public good, which means that it benefits not only students but also in the country.

Mann, a reformer of education, often nicknamed the father of the American public school system, argued that universal public schools funded by the state and non -sectarian would help support American political institutions, extend the economy and repel social disorders.

By looking for the common schools of Mann and other educational history for our book, two lessons have stood out.

The first is that the American investment in public education in the last 150 years has created a well-educated workforce that has fueled innovation and unrivaled prosperity.

As our book documents, for example, at the end of the 18th and early 19th century, states widened public education to include a high school to meet the growing demand for more educated citizenship following the industrial revolution. And the GI bill allowed veterans to return university degrees or to train for vocations, support young families and buy houses, farms or businesses, and this encouraged them to become more committed citizens, to make “American democracy more dynamic in the middle of the 20th century”.

The other as important lesson is that the democratic and republican principles that have propelled Mann’s vision of the common school have since colored many Americans on public education. Mann’s objective was a “virtuous republican citizenship”-that is to say, educated citizenship in “good citizenship, democratic participation and societal well-being”.

Mann thought that there was nothing more important than “the appropriate training of the growing generation”, calling it the “greatest terrestrial duty” in the country.

Attack public education

Today, Mann’s vision and everything that has been accomplished by public education is threatened.

Trump’s second term has supervised the efforts of conservatives over the past 75 years to control what is taught in public schools and to replace public education with private schools.

More specifically, Trump began to dismantle the Ministry of Education to transfer more policies development to the state level. The ministry is responsible, among other things, to distribute federal funds to public schools, to protect the civil rights of students and to support high -quality educational research. He was also responsible for the management of more than one dollars of student loans – a function that the administration moves to the Small Business Administration, which has no experience in the management of loans.

The president’s decree in March 2025 half reduced the staff of the department, with particularly deep cuts at the civil rights office, which, as indicated, protects students from illegal discrimination.

Trump’s efforts to reduce education funding have hitherto struck roadblocks with congress and the public. The administration aims to reduce education funding by $ 12 billion for the year 2026, which the congress is currently negotiating.

And contradict its position on the famous more control in local states and communities, the administration has also forced what cannot and must be taught in public schools. For example, it is a threatened funding for school districts that recognize transgender identities or teach on structural racism, white privilege and similar concepts. On the other hand, the White House pushes the use of a “patriotic” education which depicts the Foundation of the United States as “unifying, inspiring and ennobler”.

Promote private education

As Trump and the States have reduced the financing and the resources of public education, they transferred more money in private schools from kindergarten to the 12th year.

More recently, the budget bill adopted by the congress in July 2025 offers taxpayers a tax credit for donations to organizations that finance private scholarships. Credit, which, unlike a deduction, counts directly to the tax that someone owes, is $ 1,700 for individuals and double for married couples. The total cost could reach billions, because we do not know how many taxpayers will benefit from it.

Meanwhile, 33 states run public funds to private schools by providing good, tax credits or another form of financial assistance to parents. All together, the States allocated $ 8.2 billion to support private school education in 2024.

Government funding for private schools diverts money from public education and makes it more difficult for public schools to provide the quality of education that would benefit students and to the public as a whole. In Arizona, for example, many public schools are constantly closing their doors following the support of the State to Charter schools, home education and private school vouchers.

Indeed, public schools are funded according to the number of students they have. While more students go to private schools, there is less money to cover the wages of teachers and fixed costs such as building maintenance. In the end, this means fewer resources to educate students who remain in the public school system.

Live in aspirations

We believe that the prejudice to the country of promoting private schools while supporting public education is more than dollars and hundred.

This would mean abandoning the principle of non -sectarian universal education for American children. And in doing so, Mann’s “virtuous citizens” will be much more difficult to build and maintain.

The private market system of America, in which individuals are free to contract with each other with a minimum of government interference, was important to create prosperity and opportunities in the United States, such as our book. But, as we also find ourselves, relying on the private markets to educate young people in America makes it more difficult to create equal chances for children to learn and succeed economically, leaving the country less prosperous and more divided.

This article is republished from the conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.