Working Paper: NBER ID: w9958
Authors: Claudia Goldin; Lawrence F. Katz
Abstract: By the mid-nineteenth century school enrollment rates in the United States exceeded those of any other nation in the world and by the early twentieth century the United States had accomplished mass education at all levels. No country was able to close the gap until the last quarter of the twentieth century. For much of its history U.S. education was spurred by a set of 'virtues,' the most important of which were public provision by small fiscally independent districts, public funding, secular control, gender neutrality, open access, a forgiving system, and an academic curriculum. The outcomes of the virtues were an enormous diffusion of educational institutions and the early spread of mass education. America borrowed its educational institutions from Europe but added to them in ways that served to enhance competition and openness. The virtues of long ago need not be the virtues of today, and they also need not have been virtuous in all places and at all times in the past. In this essay we explore the historical origins of these virtues and find that almost all were in place in the period before the American Civil War.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: N3; I2
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| public provision and funding of education in small, fiscally independent districts (H52) | significant diffusion of educational institutions (I29) |
| public provision and funding of education in small, fiscally independent districts (H52) | high enrollment rates in the United States by the mid-nineteenth century (I23) |
| educational system virtues (secular control and gender neutrality) (I28) | United States leading the world in mass education during the early twentieth century (I21) |
| educational system virtues (I29) | perpetuating inequalities (racial segregation in schools) (I24) |