America's first public schools (called "common schools") blossomed in the 1820s.

Why?

Protestants needed to combat the dangerous rising tide of papist Catholics, fearing both their undemocratic ways and their demographic threat!

The Catholic response?

Parochial schools, where I was educated, along with six of my eight other siblings (two died young), so clearly the demographic threat was real (actually, Catholics were the biggest single Christian denomination by around the time of the Civil War as a result of that Irish influx).

Remind you of anything today?

Again to my point: virtually anything you can find in globalization today you can discover in America's past. There's a reason for that.