The development of the modern educational system may be said to have been well on its way (over the objections of many teachers, parents, and public press) with the first state compulsory attendance law, courtesy of Massachusetts in 1852, coupled with the shift from an agrarian to an industrial society and its accompanying, vigorously enforced child labor laws. Modern-day switches from one pedagogical plan to another are hard enough to keep up with, but the complete story of how we got to our current state of school affairs takes so many twists and convolutions that I can only recommend that you read John Taylor Gatto’s The Underground History of American Education: A Schoolteacher’s Intimate Investigation into the Problem of Modern Schooling (The Oxford Village Press, 2000) to attempt a complete understanding of the evolution.