John Davis Pierce

John Davis Pierce (February 18, 1797 – April 5, 1882) was an American minister, educator and politician. He was Michigan's first superintendent of public schools, a position new to the United States, where he established Michigan's public school system. His work has been compared to that of Horace Mann's.

Before his public service career, he attended Brown University and Princeton Theological Seminary, and became an ordained minister of the Congregational Church. When he moved to Michigan as a missionary, he became involved in Michigan politics and ultimately designed the state's public school system as part of their organization for statehood. After his superintendency, he was elected to the state legislature and served on Michigan's 1850 constitutional convention before retiring to his farm outside Ypsilanti for the last thirty years of his life.

Early life and career We have started in the race of improvement with the fixed determination of extending the blessings of education to every child in the state. Within the past three years about 2,000 districts have been organized. — —Pierce writing to Horace Mann, 1839 and was most notably involved with legislation opening Michigan's first normal school. John D. Pierce Middle School in Redford, Michigan, and John D. Pierce Middle School in Waterford, Michigan, are all named for him.