In the 1830s, Horace Mann, a Massachusetts legislator and secretary of that state's board of education, began to advocate for the creation of public schools that would be universally available to all children, free of charge, and funded by the state.

Horace Mann , credited with creating the foundation of our modern public education system, saw that the industrializing world demanded different skills than its agricultural predecessor.

The Puritans were the first in this country to point out the need for some kind of public education . They established schools to teach not just the essentials-reading, writing and math- but also to reinforce their core values.

New England. The first American schools in the thirteen original colonies opened in the 17th century. Boston Latin School was founded in 1635 and is both the first public school and oldest existing school in the United States.