Didn't the Puritans have some form of public education. In any case Jefferson and Horace Mann talked about the benefits of it.
Certain communities in the Massachusetts colony had "common schools" endowed by general subscription to supplement the expensive private schools that already existed.
In any case Jefferson and Horace Mann talked about the benefits of it.
Jefferson theorized about public education. Horace Mann was a former teacher who agitated for more comprehensive public education in the MA statehouse in the 1830s. When the legislation he sponsored to establish a statewide board of education was successful, he resigned his seat and became the first superintendent, in 1839 or thereabouts. That BofE was only a standards body for MA schools, not a schools administrator. Mann fought to expand its power and authority.
At first he didn't get much traction, but ten years later - when there were tens of thousands of Irish immigrants in MA in the aftermath of the mid-40s famine and Catholic priests and nuns were setting up dozens of already quite excellent Catholic parish schools - public opinion began to go Mann's way very quickly.
The left wing of the MA Whigs, which included Mann, and which would subsequently break off and become the anti-Irish Native American (Know Nothing) Party were successful in getting a new statewide, state-funded education system modeled directly on the Prussian state education system.
The Prussian system itself, of course, was championed and strengthened by a young Bismarck who saw in it a counterbalance to the highly successful and popular Jesuit-run schools of Catholic Germany.
It was the only truly lasting policy initiative of the Know Nothings, and they openly promoted it as a necessary measure to prevent the rising tide of "Popery."
Massachusetts became the model for the nation and MA-style public schools became standard over the course of the following quarter-century.
Today's public schools may be nearly useless for education purposes, but they still fulfill their original mission of disagreeing with the Pope about everything.