Modern-day public school system has its roots in 1700s

Julie Avila, 9, a rising fourth-grader at Mundelein's Diamond Lake School, asked a few questions about schools. "Why did they call it grammar school? How did schools look back then; were they big or small?"

The term grammar school comes from Medieval Europe, where students were originally taught in Latin using a Latin grammar book. According to Kenneth Saltman, associate professor, educational policy studies and research at DePaul University in Chicago, grammar school, grade school and elementary school now have the same meaning - schools that teach students up to eighth grade, or up to sixth grade if the school district offers a middle school.

The way schools look has a lot to do with how schools developed. The idea for U.S. public schools came from the German kingdom of Prussia. In the 1700s, Prussia offered free schooling through the eighth grade. Teachers taught the basics - reading, writing and arithmetic - and some other subjects.

In the early 1800s, Massachusetts resident Horace Mann, who had visited schools in Prussia, suggested that all children, kindergarten age to age 16, should go to school. Local property taxes would pay for the education, so students would attend for free. Massachusetts enacted Mann's ideas. This public school concept was copied in New York and then filtered across the U.S.

"Mann's other innovations included reforms to the curriculum, the reduction of corporal punishment (beating students) and the separation of students into different classrooms by different levels of learning," Saltman said.

These ideas changed the way schools looked. Before, schools were held in a small, one-room building. Students in all grades would be taught by one teacher. "The school house typically had wooden desks facing the teacher's desk in the front. The room had a wood-burning stove in the center for heat. Students wrote with feather quill and ink," Saltman said.

Reforms in education overlapped with social changes as people moved to cities to look for work. In addition to reading, writing and arithmetic, new ideas came into the classroom.

The emphasis turned to "reason and discussion rather than rote learning and a belief that what we learn in school should relate to the world at large and our experiences," Saltman said. He added, "Reformers saw public schools as a means to develop each human being and to encourage the individual's contribution to the betterment of society."

A major change in public schools was called the Gary Plan, developed and first used in Gary, Ind. Adopted by the Federal Bureau of Education in 1914, the Gary Plan made the school day more factory-like.

"Innovations like strict time periods signaled by bells, the movement of students from classroom to classroom, and the creation of departments were intended to more efficiently use less space, to increase social interaction among students, and to expand the subjects taught beyond the basics."

Most countries divide federal money equally among schools instead of relying on local property taxes to pay for schools, and yet other counties have no public schools. In poor countries, that means that many people have no education. Here in the U.S. it can mean that some school districts have more than twice the amount of money to spend on each student as in other districts.

The school system in the U.S. allows students to choose their own academic path and careers, unlike in other countries where difficult exams limit the number of students who can attend college. "Public School students in the U.S. score about the same as in other wealthy countries on international tests of reading, math and science," Saltman said.

There is room for improvement in the U.S. public school system, Saltman said. "Improving public schooling to be funded fairly and to be racially and ethnically integrated, and to be more democratic, would be, in the words of Horace Mann, 'a victory for humanity.'"

Check these out

The Fremont Public Library District suggests these titles on education:

• "The Schoolmasters," by Leonard Fisher

• "Early Schools," by Bobbie Kalman

• "A Day In The Life Of A Colonial Schoolteacher," by Kathy Wilmore

• "T Is For Teacher: A School Alphabet," by Steven Layne

• "Chalkboard Chuckles: A Book of Classroom Jokes," by Mark Moore