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Events • April 1, 2025 

# *Raised to Obey: The Rise and Spread of Mass Education*

We tend to think of public education as a ladder of opportunity—a system that ensures that no matter a child’s economic circumstances, they will get the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed in life. But what if that’s wrong? Indeed, what if the goal is actually the opposite: to keep people docilely in their place, no matter how bad their situation?

This is what *Raised to Obey*, grounded in deep, original research on the timing and targeting of mass education, contends. Public education was very often created not to give children what they needed to do or be whatever they wanted but to keep people in their place.

[![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) 
This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/). 

##### Featuring 

![Agustina Paglayan](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2025-03/Agustina%20Paglayan.jpeg?itok=V416FMyI) 

##### Agustina Paglayan 

Professor, University of California, San Diego

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[![Neal McCluskey Cropped](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2023-11/mccluskey-cropped.jpg?itok=I-QI0yJD)](/people/neal-mccluskey) 

##### [Neal McCluskey](/people/neal-mccluskey)

Former Director, Center for Educational Freedom, Cato Institute