Every state in our union has a compulsory school attendance law, but why do we require schooling? What is the purpose of school? Or the purposes?
Here are seven (perhaps overlapping) possibilities:
- Public Schools are Stepping Stones designed to give all children the opportunity to reach their potential. They are Ladders.
- Neither Ladders nor Stepping Stones, Public Schools exist to ratify the existing social and economic order.
- They exist to teach ‘The Three R’s’ of reading, writing, and math. Full stop!
- They are sorting machines, designed to separate winners from losers in our competitive capitalist system. They use standardized test scores and other measures to achieve this.
- They are instruments of Social Control designed to civilize the unwashed masses, ‘Americanize’ immigrants, and maintain the social order.
- Their purpose is to prepare citizens for life in a democracy–even though they are almost as undemocratic as prisons and the military!
- They are designed to indoctrinate. Why else would they have 5-year-olds–who have no idea what the words ‘pledge’ and ‘allegiance’ even mean–pledging allegiance?
I am giving a talk in about 10 days to a sophisticated audience, and I’d appreciate your thoughts. You can post a public answer (my preference) here or here, or you can write to me privately at john.merrow@gmail.com.
Thanks,
John
The Merrow Report 
Check out David Labaree’s seminal work on this question: https://www.ihc.ucsb.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/larrabee_Public_goods.pdf He gets it right.And please don’t go off on a tangent about indoctrination and sorting machines. The vast, vast majority of public schools are organized to (as Labaree says) build civic engagement, make students ready for the world of work, and make social mobility possible, rather than dooming poor children to their “station” in life. Do public schools achieve all these aims? Of course not. But they’re the only widespread, funded and organized agencies trying–however imperfectly–to do so.
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I would choose #1, but broaden it. Public schools should be ladders to human flourishing—not merely to jobs, test scores, or individual economic mobility. Their purpose is to help every young person develop knowledge, competence, curiosity, well-being, critical judgment, and the ability to participate fully in democratic life.
That purpose must also reach beyond the individual. Schools should help young people understand their responsibility to one another, to the natural world, and to future generations. Peace, human dignity, fairness, and environmental stewardship are not optional additions to education; they are essential to a livable future.
If we do not intentionally cultivate empathy, ethical responsibility, ecological understanding, and the ability to resolve conflict without domination or violence, we should not be surprised by deepening division, indifference to environmental destruction, and recurring war. Schools alone cannot solve these problems, but they either help create the conditions for a more humane world or reinforce the conditions that sustain them.
The other descriptions may accurately capture what schools have often done—sort, control, preserve hierarchy, or indoctrinate. But those are warnings, not purposes worthy of compulsory education. If the state requires children to attend school, it has an obligation to ensure that schools serve the full development of every child and the common good of humanity.
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JohnIt’s great to hear from you again…hope the bike ride went well! You’re not up to 100 miles yet!!!!!! Let me respond to a few of your excellent questions. See below in response to several of the questions.BestBob WedlMN Commissioner of Education 1996-99
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2-7. not so much 1.
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