美国联邦政府干预公共教育起点问题的再讨论

The Reinterpretation on the Origins of Federal Role in American Public Education

学界一般认为,18世纪中后期《西北土地法》的颁布确立了联邦以赠地的形式参与教育事务,是联邦干预公共教育问题的起点,但这一认识是不准确的。通过系统梳理18世纪中后期一系列土地法令形成的过程,发现《西北土地法》中教育条款的出现并不是出于联邦对教育自身的考量,而是意在提高西北新州的地价、稳定移民的妥协方案,这不足以成为联邦干预公共教育的起点事件。联邦政府对美国公共教育的有意干预是在南北战争之后美国工业化的腾飞中最终生成并确立下来的。19世纪早期的美国公共学校运动迫切需要一条有效的"同质化"策略来消解自殖民地时期以来的教育地方主义;同一时期的美国的工业化与工厂制——科学、效率、一致性和科层制,有效地为美国公共学校运动提供了一条逻辑缜密的"同质化"策略。这意味着,联邦政府干预教育实质上是19世纪后期联邦政府引导、干预、成就美国工业化过程中所扮演的领导角色在教育系统的体现。

The federal role in American public education was not originated in Northwest Ordinance of 1787,but set up in the industrialization after the Civil War when the American public education movement need the One way to dispel the educational localism since the Colonial times;at the meantime,the scientific method,efficient,consensus and the bureaucracy established during the industrialism helped to form this One way for strategy for public education movement.Also,the reason for this One way offered by the industrialization was rooted in the strong federal role during the industrialization.This came to the conclusion that the federal role was strong but invisible.It was helped by the visible economic and institutional way to make the state,the economy and the education embedded in the whole wheels in the state machine.