Horace Mann's Vision Of Education Essay

Horace Mann had a great vision for the education of this country. He believed that education would act as this great equalizer for men and everyone would be held to the same standards. As time slowly went on, we can see that his vision has made progress, but hasn’t entirely come true. In our text book we see examples of people trying to stop Mann’s great vision. One way that education was unequal was that they were segregated and the schools filled with minorities lacked the same kind of funding for equipment and building repairs that all white schools had. This fact has long been fought and one of the earliest examples, also one that most people are aware of, is the court case Plessy vs. Ferguson. In this case it was argued that it was not equal to have segregated schools. The court,

Suicidal eight year olds went hand in hand with those students that lived in poverty. Elementary schools had ceilings that kept collapsing on them throughout the school year, and the roofs were so bad that when it would rain or snow, water would leak through the ceiling. Children in these schools had little to no opportunities to go outside. None of these issues were seen in dominantly white schools. Also, students that attended Waverly were treated unfairly. The security guard or the janitor made sure the students couldn’t talk at all on some days. The adults made the students feel like very uncomfortable and miserable. Teachers were verbally abusive and some of the urban schools did not care for the students. Parents in the urban areas would not complain because they were not engaged in their children’s education so the teachers would get away with their behavior. Focusing more on the education we saw students from Waverly had to focus more on tests/ state requirements and didn’t get to focus on other areas like science and social