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The provincial legislature, the Massachusetts General Court, called for all children to be educated and made "profitable to the Commonwealth".
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A law compelled towns with over fifty families to employ a schoolmaster, whose foremost duties were to tach children to read the Bible and write.
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Most New England colonies followed the Massachusetts example with town schools of their own. Thirteen years after sparating from Massachusetts, New Hemisphere went one step further by making taxation for support of town schools mandatory, rather than optional.
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The Virginia government began to require masters to teach their apprentices literacy skills.
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The Massachusetts State Constitution affirmed the value of public education for all members of society.
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requiring towns with over fifty families to employ a schoolmaster to teach at least six months of reading, writing, arithmetic, and decent behavior each year; towns with more
than one hundred families were obligated to offer year-round instruction. -
The state legislature determined that towns should have the option of collecting tax revenue for school and dispersing it among heir districts, ensuring local control over spending.
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In 1827 Governor Levi Lincoln approved “ An Act to Provide for the Instruction of Youth,” which requires towns to support their common schools entirely through taxation. In the law it says “section 7 required committees shall never direct any school book to be purchased or used, which are calculated to favor any particular religious sect or tenet.” Massachusetts Bay Colony split into orthodox Calvinist and liberal Unitarian branches.
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The New York State legislature passed "An Act Establishing Free Schools throughout the state"
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Still not satisfied, two state lawmakers put forward a bill in early 1851 that would eliminate the key funding provision of the 1849 law and reinstate tuition payments.
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Opponents in the legislature secured a new bill proposing to repeal the Free School Law altogether, and agin submitting the question to voters in November.