The Know-Nothing Amendments: Barriers to School Choice in Massachusetts

Barriers to School Choice in Massachusetts Author(s): Cornelius Chapman — Publication date: 2009-04-04 Category: Education Abstract: This paper will consider a sad phenomenon in American history—19th-century nativism and in particular, anti-Catholic prejudice—and its lingering and deleterious effects on American primary and secondary education. The wave of nativist sentiment that swept through American thought and institutions in the 19th century wiped out an older, pluralistic approach to primary and secondary education in which the interests of parents were balanced with those of the state. The purported constitutional grounds for this shift will be shown to rest on an incorrect assumption as to whether the framers of the Constitution intended to include education within the prohibition of established religions.

The Know-Nothing Amendments: Barriers to School Choice in Massachusetts