What role do the states and the feds have in shaping public education?

The state and federal government both have important roles in shaping public education. The state funds the schools while the federal government decides who can attend public schools to get an education. Even though both forms of government shape public education, the state government has more to do with shaping public education.
The state government has to teacher their citizens intellectual instruction and moral discipline. The state needs to enlighten the minds of their citizens, purify their hearts, and teach them their rights and obligations. The state government supports the public schools and wants the students to get a good education. In addition, the state government made a law in the 1880s and 1890s that demanded that English should only be used in the classroom. However, this caused a huge controversy within the states especially in Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Illinois. The Germans would press for bilingual schools in some of the cities, and in other cities, they simply wanted the study of the language as a special subject. For instance, the state laws in Wisconsin said that class was to be taught in English. However, a county superintendent said in his annual report that it was better to look the other way when he found out that some public school classes were taught in German.
The federal government shaped public education in many ways. “From the start, Congress used the national domain to support common schools. The Ordinance of 1785 declared that ‘there shall be reserved the lot No. 16, of every township, for the maintenance of public schools, within the said township.’”[1] The federal government shaped public education by reserving land so that schools could be built to educate the citizens of the United States. The federal government helped give the common school a continental reach. In addition, during the 1920s, the federal law was passed that said English must used in the classrooms and not any other language. Later on, the federal government required patriotic exercises in the classroom such as the Pledge of Allegiance. They also passed and enforced strong essential attendance laws. Even though the federal government had little control over mainstream public schools in the United States, federal officials had the authority to define and enforce “Americanization” when it came to former foes, colonial subjects, or wards of the national state. The federal government set up the Bureau of Indian Affairs schools after the Civil War. They wanted to make the Indians, Filipinos, and the Japanese-Americans into citizens and wanted to Americanize them. They would build schools for these groups because they did not want them to interact with the other students in public schools.
In conclusion, the state and federal government shaped schools into what the schools are today. Both the state and federal government are involved with the school system today. However, the federal government is still trying to shape the schools and become more involved with public schools, while the state is constantly being involved with the public school system.
[1] Tyak, D. (2003). Seeking Common Ground: Public Schools in a Diverse Society. Cambridge: Harvard.