The Paradigm of Education

Education reform is a topic that is always on everyone's minds. Parents are never happy with the public schools system. Teachers are always complaining about being underpaid and under staffed. Legeslators are always complaining about having to raise taxes to support the schools. Tax payers are feeling the squeeze in high property taxes. How is America to pay for the education of their youths? Is a national tax required or is property and local taxes enough? Do under-privileged communities require assistance from the well-off communities to pay for their children's education? Do well off communities have a moral obligation to help these poor communities? Is busing students to another school district the answer? There are many questions, many theories, and many answers. Hopefully in this paper I will shed some light on the topic.

It is very clear why we need an educated society. In the early parts of American birth, Thomas Jefferson stated that for democracy to work it needed an educated public. This is very true; people who cannot read obviously cannot read the voting ballot. It wasn't until pioneers like Thomas Mann started to study in the 1830s the need for public education further that the public started to truly realize the importance of education. At the time, only the very well off were educated at private institutions or were home schooled by their parents or tutors. However, it wasn't until the early 1900s that all the states ratified an agreement that public school be mandatory for all to attend. It took almost 150 years for the states to agree that public school was mandatory. Students were still allowed to attend private schools, the famous case against the Sisters of Mercy School in California, allowed this.