History of public schooling
What's really funny is that the original public school system was created not to educate students as much as it was to create good little citizens of the State. In other words, a tool of collectivism.
Read up on Horace Mann, the "Father of American Education," who believed that "social harmony" was the primary goal of schooling. Whether Mann is regarded as a hero or not depends, of course, on who's writing the articles.