The Riddle of Education

Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines education as “the bringing up, as a child; to instruction; formation of manners. Education comprehends all that series of instruction and discipline which is intended to enlighten the understanding, correct the temper, and form the manners and habits of youth, and fit them for usefulness in their future stations.” Since the 18th century education and the philosophy of education have taken a radical journey from high esteem and voluntary participation to a compulsory predetermined education. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and other educational reforms promoting high-stakes testing, accountability and global markets continue to drive education policy. Parents, educators and lawmakers need to question whether the new approach to education should replace the previous successful model of education. Over the past two centuries the educational evolution that has taken place and the resulting current policies of NCLB actually undermines successful academic growth and America’s capacity to maintain an educated civic-minded society.
From the conception of the U.S. as a nation the control of schools and education has been given to the people and the different states to handle in any manner they saw fit, due to the Tenth Amendment which states “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Thomas Jefferson believed that state-supported schools were needed to provide the people with a general education and to identify and prepare the most talented persons for leadership roles by providing access to higher education. His belief of educating an “aristocracy of virtue and talent” was not based on class, but the need for citizens to cast their vote intelligently (Tauber 637). Thus he proposed a education that would prepare the citizenry to govern a nation in liberty, civic virtue, and by popular consent of the educated governed. In a

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