Horace Mann: The Father Of Public Education

The earliest memories of my childhood that I can recall vividly are of my mother teaching me elementary Vietnamese and multiplication tables. “Your handwriting is terrible. You must fix it,” she remarked, handing the cursive sheet back to me. “Why does that matter if the answer is right?” I retorted. She sighed, “It matters because I said so.” I remember hating those lessons with a passion, but even back then, their value was not lost on me. It is because of her teachings that I still retain some semblance of the language and a love for math. However, when I entered public school, things changed. The problem was not the change of instructor, but rather the way resources, from the books to the teachers, were financed. I later learned that schools varying by regional area were funded by the taxes of the people living in the vicinity. This meant that some rural schools could go years without updating their books by which their students learned, or upgrading the technology for which new, more efficient learning programs were created. Luckily, the public school that I attended was better off, reaping the benefits by adding a fine arts wing to the school. But other

schools in impoverished areas did not fare as well.
Horace Mann was an American educational reformer during the 1820s and 1830s who is recognized today as the “Father of the American public education”.

He once said, “Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves.” Mann made education more available to those who lacked it and spent years advocating for tighter state education standards. Nearly 200 centuries later in the United States, public or private schools that are underfunded often find themselves losing their best teachers to better pay and benefits, and as a result, the education level of their students suffers. Paradoxically, even though there is state regulated funding for public schools in America, it is inequitable. This unequal finance means that variation per state is wide and students across the nation do not receive an equivalent

education.
From a worldwide perspective, the disparity between educated countries and countries where the illiterate far outnumber their counterparts is widening. This gap can be attributed to multiple factors, such as a lack of funds to support education, an overwhelming sense of poverty, and society barring certain groups of people from learning. In underdeveloped countries like Niger and Somalia, children are unlikely to receive a primary education because the economic crisis that these poor countries are in render them unable to allocate the necessary resources to fund schools. Beyond that, people in this situation are more concerned about putting three meals on the table every day and consequently have less time and energy to attend school.
I believe that a Schedler Honors College education would enhance my understanding of this issue even further by allowing me to open up or continue a channel of dialogue in which understanding can be facilitated. The issue of inadequate funding for public education can begin the process of discussion and eventually reach a positive resolution. Through my leadership in the “public square”, a conversation can be made possible through the community in which a diverse crowd can be reached, and fundraisers can be started to help alleviate the issue. Education is a privilege that does not reach nearly enough people and the discourse over this problem would be the first small step in the right direction.