History
Common Schools
Dating back to the 19th century, education was vital to democracy in the United States. The education and training of a population was a critical input to productivity and thus to economic growth (Goldin 1999). The foundation of an education system began with the introduction to common schools in the region of New England in the early to mid-1800’s. These common schools shaped the institutional structure of American schools and embedded policy assumptions about what schools should and could do for a society (ModU, 2017). This was around the time that Parliament in the United Kingdom decided to invest portions of the budget to construct public schools for poor children. By the end of the 19th century, public education at an elementary level was free for all American children due to the efforts of Horace Mann of Massachusetts and Henry Barnard of Connecticut who reformed against the notion that education should only be available to wealthy people and argued that common schooling for all children would create good citizens, a united society and the prevention of crime and poverty (Thattai 2001).
Racial Equality
Segregation wasn’t just morally bad; it also discreetly – or maybe not so discreetly – assured that Black Americans wouldn’t be able to access all of the practical and material benefits of their citizenship (CrashCourse 2022). One of those material benefits for black Americans was the access to public school education. The Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 legalized the separation of whites and blacks in an education setting to ensure that education settings in black schools were ‘separate but equal’ to the education settings in white schools. However, the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) argued that the treatment of children in black schools was not so equal to white schools. Examples of this included underfunding along with outdated materials and resources. During this period in history, the UK were passing Acts through Parliament which led to changes in funding for schools and opportunities for blind and deaf children. The UK also saw many changes in the attendance age during this time, starting with the Education Act 1876, sometimes referred to as Sandon’s Act, in which education be made compulsory in order to cut down on child employment below the age of 10. Racial segregation in the UK, when it comes to education, has been researched into by Burgess (2005) in which ethnic segregation in schools compares highly to residential segregation. Russo, Harris and Sandidge (1994) suggests that the most significant ruling of all time by the United States Supreme Court came in 1954 with the outcome of Brown v. Board of Education. This led to the shutdown of all state laws pertaining to separation of public schools for black and white students. The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, when it pertains to education, provides that a state may not “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws” (Johnson 2017).
Technology
The use of computers within UK and US schools came into fruition towards the end of the 1970’s. Since then, they have created new ways of learning within students in both countries. Although schools did not yet have access to the internet, the computer began to be used for a variety of learning purposes and as an eventual replacement for the typewriter when creating and completing reports and assignments (Ayala 2018). Similar success came with the implementation of remote learning in both countries due to the COVID-19 pandemic in which the use of technology in education became more essential than ever. As a result, the Department for Education in the UK announced their intent to establish a strong evidence base for effective use of technology and embed this across the school system, so that it is easy for schools and families to use the best products at the right time (Department for Education 2022). The United States responded likewise to the effects that technology had during the pandemic. COVID-19 had laid bare that, in today’s environment where pandemics and the effects of climate change are likely to occur, schools cannot always provide in-person education – making the case for investing in education technology, otherwise known as EdTech (Brookings 2020).
