Which statement describes a consequence of the 1870 Education Act for working-class families?

• A. Parents could no longer rely on the labor of their children
• B. It reduced the costs of schooling
• C. It changed the parent/child relationship and marked the start of childhood
• D. It had no impact

Answer: (A)

The main idea here is that the 1870 Education Act made schooling compulsory for children, which took the responsibility and time of working-age children away from the family in order to learn. For working-class families, that meant they could no longer count on their children’s wages to help run the household. The act effectively turns children into students during the day, so the family’s income from child labor drops, which is the direct economic consequence for those families.

While it’s true that the broader social view of childhood begins to change and the parent/child dynamic shifts as children spend less time working and more in school, the question’s focus is on the concrete impact on families’ finances and labor. The idea that schooling costs were automatically reduced isn’t the central or most direct consequence, and saying there was no impact would ignore the clear economic shift caused by removing child labor from the household.