19 in the 1920s, the American public elementary school movement began. Primary schools maintained by public taxes, supervised by administrative organs and open to all children free of charge have been widely established in various places.

One of the important reasons for the emergence and rapid spread of the public school movement is the influence of American democratic thoughts. The electoral system requires voters to have a certain level of education, and the activities of the working class have also developed to strive for equal rights in education. The second is the need of the industrial revolution. The booming industrial revolution has put forward the requirements of cultural education for the labor force and laid a material foundation for the establishment of public schools. After the 1920s, a large number of school-age children flooded into primary schools in the United States. Horace Mann, the first secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education (equivalent to the director of education), strongly advocated public schools and was called "the father of American public schools". The establishment of American public schools not only laid the foundation of American bourgeois education system, but also became the beginning of the universal compulsory education movement in the United States.

Due to the rapid development of primary education, the demand for teachers has been stimulated, which has promoted the development of normal education in the United States. 1839, due to Horace Mann's efforts, Massachusetts established the first batch of public normal schools in the United States, 186 1 year reached 12.