The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again

by Robert D. Putnam

Perhaps the clearest example of this is the high school movement, which we have pointed to in previous chapters. Universal, free public high schools were an almost entirely local innovation, created in small towns in the early decades of the twentieth century, although academics in places like Harvard had bruited about the idea in the late nineteenth century. At that time, students who wanted to extend their education past “common school” usually had to pay for private instruction, though some cities had selective secondary schools such as Boston Latin, open only to unusually talented youngsters. But recognizing the growing demand for more educated workers in a rapidly changing economy, a handful of communities in the Midwest began rallying citizens to band together and provide free secondary school for all. In towns that successfully raised taxes to pay for them, public high schools were built and, given the growing economic return on education, the idea spread across the country like wildfire—or in a more contemporary metaphor, went viral. Hence, one of the most powerful forces behind America’s Great Convergence, as well as our ability to out-compete other nations in a globalizing economy during the upswing, was the vastly expanded education of our workforce—something that, amazingly, came almost entirely from the bottom up.