President Andrew Johnson created the first Department of Education in 1867.
During the 19th century, public schools became more common.
In 1830, 55% of children aged between 5 and 14 attended public schools, according to Johann N. Neem’s “Democracy’s Schools: The Rise of Public Education in America.” By 1870, that number had risen to 78%.
By the late 1860s, the common school movement, which advocated for free, universal, state-funded education, had been growing in the North for decades, according to the Center on Education Policy. School reform in Massachusetts promoted universal schooling as a means to eliminate crime, poverty, and other societal ills.
After the Civil War, abolitionists and public education advocates saw the Northern model of universal education as one of the reasons for the Union’s victory in the war and called for its federal expansion.
In 1867, then-Ohio representative James Garfield introduced a bill to create a federal Department of Education, which President Andrew Johnson then signed into law.
The department would collect and analyze data detailing school conditions and performance throughout the states, share information regarding education progress, school systems, and teaching methods, and promote education throughout the country.
“The idea was similar to what we think right now in terms of collecting data, that if we know more, we could improve schools based on that knowledge,” Kevin G. Welner, professor of educational policy and law at the University of Colorado Boulder and the director of the National Education Policy Center, told Business Insider.
