While there were examples of public education in early American, I suspect that Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers, when it came to education, had in mind their **own** educational experiences: home, tutoring, dame schools, small one room schools organized by parents, small home based academies for final preparation for college, apprenticeships or college for young teens.
The progressive, Horace Mann, Prussian-style, modern system of government schools did not come about until the mid-1800s to the early 1900s.
Our Founding Fathers would be horrified to see our modern collectivist government schools.
And Horace Mann -like true progressive in defense of his ch ch ch changes in education insisted there would always be a place for religion and Morality in the school. Dewey was the one who set educators above anything seen in the church calling them the new apostles.And saying educators not religion could lead us to a better world.