Critics of State Education: A Reader

The relation between school and state in American liberal thought has a checkered past. Many traditional heroes of American individualism, such as Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, upheld some role for government in education. Others, however, feared the consequences of placing control of education in the hands of a single group and supported the separation of school and state. The preservation of individual freedom, according to those who were against state education, is the only legitima...