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In August 1619, a ship arrived in Point Comfort, Virginia, carrying more than 20 enslaved Africans, the first on record to be brought to the English colony of Virginia. They were among the 12.5 million Africans forced into the trans-Atlantic slave trade through the Middle Passage.

The school curriculum linked to the New York Times' 1619 Project— an initiative that aims to reframe U.S. history by putting the legacy of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at its center— is the target of lawmakers, who seek to ban the materials in states.
Lawmakers Push to Ban '1619 Project' From Schools https://www.edweek.org › teaching-learning › 2021/02

Chalkbeat reports efforts in 17 states to expand education on racism and bias, while in 36 states there are efforts to restrict that kind of education. https://www.chalkbeat.org/22525983/map-critical-race-theory-legislation-teaching-racism

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First public high school in the U.S., Boston English, opens for white students.

*MA passes the first state law making all grades of public school open to all white pupils free of charge in 1827.

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In 1849 Sarah Roberts contested the legality of segregated schools in Boston.  Her case was heard before the Massachusetts Supreme Court. ​

Starting in 1855 it became illegal to “prohibit all distinctions of color and religion in Massachusetts public schools admissions” which meant the beginning of school integration in the state. ​

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The 1946 ruling of Melendez v. Westminster gives Mexican students in California equal rights to education.

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During the 1940s, Orange County, CA schools used this chart to enroll students.

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This 1942 sign details the places where people of Japanese descent were allowed to live.

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In 1946, the National School Lunch Act created the modern school lunch program, though USDA had provided funds and food to schools for many years prior to 1946.bout 7.1 million children were participating in the National School Lunch Program by the end of its first year, 1946‐47.

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In response to a suit brought by the NAACP on behalf of three black high school students, the Mansfield school district  was the first in Texas ordered by a federal court to desegregate. The school board acquiesced, but white citizens resisted, aided by the complicity of the mayor and chief of police. While some 100 other, mostly West Texas, school districts desegregated quietly that fall, angry mobs of 300 to 400 whites ringed Mansfield High School on August 30 and 31, preventing the enrollment of the three students.​

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The Little Rock Nine was a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957.

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The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the 4th Civil Rights Act passed by the US (1866, 1875, 1957)​

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It outlawed public, intentional discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin in government agencies and facilities, public accommodations, education, and employment; established a federal enforcement structure and empowered victims of discrimination to sue and the government to withhold federal funds from violators.

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Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA 1965)​

April 11th, 1965, Presideny Lyndon B. Johnson signed ESEA into law​

Congress called ESEA "Johnson's War of Poverty"​

Establishes high standards and accountability​

Closes gaps between students by providing fair and equal opportunities to achieve an education​

Provided funds are for professional development, instructional materials, resources to support education programs, and parental involvement promotion

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A year after passing the Racial Imbalance Act (1965), the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO) was created (1966). METCO oversees the inter-district transfer of students between Boston and Springfield and their surrounding suburban districts. In 2016 there were still approximately 3,000 students enrolled in the program. [To the right, students who attended the Weston, MA METCO program.]​

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In 1968 Congress passes the Bilingual Education Act, providing the first funding to encourage schools to incorporate native-language education in their curriculum.

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Tinker v. the Des Moines Independent Community School District - The Supreme Court decision that affirmed students’ rights to free expression of speech guaranteed in the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth. The famous line from the ruling stated that, “….Students do not shed their right to free speech at the schoolhouse gate.” Des Moines administrators changed their policy of limiting student expression to comply with the court’s ruling.​

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After the integration of Waukegan schools, Edith Smith was elected to the Waukegan Township High School (Illinois) District 119 board in 1968 in one of the school districts that preceded the current consolidated Waukegan School District 60.​

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The Oakland Community School was opened in 1973 and operated by the Black Panther Party in Oakland. The alternative school grew out of No. 5 in the Black Panther Party’s Ten Point Program, which called for educating black and poor people about their true history in the United States.​

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In 1973 Demetrio Rodriguez, pictured here, was the plantiff in the case Rodriguez v. San Antonio. The case, which was eventually brought before the Supreme Court, found that the San Antonio Independent School District was not violating the constitution by relying on property taxes to disproportionately fund their schools.  ​

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In an attempt to desegregate the schools, court ordered busing began in Boston, MA on September 12th, 1974. ​

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In 1974, Milliken v. Bradley clarified the distinction between de jure and de facto segregation, confirming that segregation was allowed if it was not considered an explicit policy of each school district. The Court held that the school systems were not responsible for desegregation across district lines unless it could be shown that they had each deliberately engaged in a policy of segregation.​

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Ted Landsmark, an African-American lawyer, was approaching City Hall one day in 1976 just as a group of white South Boston High School students were leaving a Boston City Council meeting with anti-busing city councilmen. The students beat him up and one of the assailants appeared to be trying to stab him with a staff holding an American flag.​

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In Penick v. Columbus Board of Education (1977), judge Robert Duncan ruled that the Columbus (Ohio) Board of Education knowingly kept white and black students apart by creating school boundaries that sent black students to predominantly black schools and white students to predominantly white schools, and had failed to use its authority to alleviate existing racial imbalances. ​

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The Indian Child Welfare Act was enacted in 1978 because of the disproportionately high rate of forced removal of Native American children from their traditional homes and essentially from Native American cultures as a whole. ​

It also gave Native American parents the legal right to deny their children’s placement in off-reservation schools and boarding schools. ​

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In 1981 the Cambridge Public Schools adopted a policy of “controlled choice” as a way to desegregate their schools based on socioeconomics rather than race. Their policy continues to be a national model. ​

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In June 1982, the US Supreme Court issued Plyler v. Doe, a landmark decision holding that states cannot constitutionally deny students a free public education on account of their immigration status. By a 5-4 vote, the Court found that any resources which might be saved from excluding undocumented children from public schools were far outweighed by the harms imposed on society at large from denying them an education. ​

This ruling was based on a case from Texas where in 1975, the Texas Legislature authorized local school districts to deny enrollment in public schools to foreign-born children who were not “legally admitted” to the United States.

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In 1983 the Fort Worth (Texas) School District established the Language Center program for middle and high school immigrant students. ​

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“A Nation at Risk” was published in 1984. President Ronald Reagan developed an education reform program because of the report targeting schools that were deemed failing. The term “at-risk” was then expanded to refer to “failing” students themselves

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In 1987, under the leadership of Alderman Mike Capuano, Somerville passed a resolution to become a Sanctuary City entitling immigrants the same rights and privileges as regular city residents.

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The West Metro Education Program began as a concept in 1989 when Minneapolis and eight suburban school districts joined in an effort to comply with Minnesota state desegregation rules that were in effect at the time. ​

In the late 1990s, the state Legislature appropriated money to create the inter-district schools offering programs to prompt voluntary desegregation.​

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During this decade many districts won release from court ordered desegregation plans.​

A report by the Harvard Civil Rights Project said that while schools in the South still have more integration of African-Americans and whites than before the desegregation movement, they lost ground in the 1990s. ​

And it highlights that segregation of Latinos from non-Hispanic whites in schools is even greater than it is for African-Americans.​

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In 1991, Oklahoma City v. Dowell decided that a federal desegregation order should be ended even though it meant that schools would become re-segregated since the Oklahoma schools had been arranged into a unitary system.​

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In 1993, Governor William Weld (of Massachusetts) signed the Education Reform Act into law. Before the law was passed, districts around the state were able to fund schools at vastly different rates ranging from $3,000 per pupil to $10,000 per pupil.  ​

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The Robin Hood plan was a media nickname given to legislation enacted by the U.S. state of Texas in 1993 to provide court-mandated equitable school financing for all school districts in the state, in response to the Texas Supreme Court's ruling in Edgewood Independent School District v. Kirby. ​

The law "recaptured" property tax revenue from property-wealthy school districts and distributed those in property-poor districts, in an effort to equalize the financing of all school districts throughout Texas.

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On June 12, 1995 the Court, in a 5-4 decision, overturned a District Court ruling that required the state of Missouri to correct de facto racial inequality in schools by funding salary increases and remedial education programs.​

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Since 2000, 71 predominately white communities  have attempted to secede from their school districts. Of these, 47 communities have been successful at splitting from their districts. ​

States such as Alabama make it easy for a town to create its own district.

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In 2002, President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Law that required states to track progress of subgroups including minorities and special education students.​

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Race to the Top was a $4.35 billion United States Department of Education competitive grant created to spur and reward innovation and reforms in state and local district K-12 education.​

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The state-led effort to develop the Common Core State Standards was launched in 2009 by state leaders, including governors and state commissioners of education from 48 states.

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Michael Brown attended and graduated from Normandy High School, which is part of the recently renamed Normandy Schools Collaborative. Missouri has long identified Brown’s district in northern St. Louis county as struggling, so much so that the state revoked its accreditation in 2012.

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The Amherst, MA public schools superintendent and school committee were forced to turn down an offer of $34 million from the MA School Building Authority (MSBA) to build a state of the art set of elementary schools because community members voted down the idea of eliminating their traditional "neighborhood schools". ​

As a result the district still has the old buildings which no not meet ADA regulations and have many problems that impact the health and learning of children. The new school plan would have provided equitable access to all programming for low-income children and children with special needs. ​

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In January 2014, approximately 40 students at Uintah Elementary School (in Salt Lake City, Utah) had their lunches removed from them and thrown in the trash. According to the school district, the students' lunch accounts were in arrears, and the district's child-nutrition manager visited the school and decided to take away the students' lunches.

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A national study called Fault Lines put Pennsylvania among the most educationally segregated states in the country, with borders that create wealthy, predominantly white school districts right next door to those that are mostly nonwhite and impoverished.​

For more than two decades, Pennsylvania had no predictable funding formula, allowing inequities to grow. It gave districts the same amount they got the previous year, regardless of enrollment drops or other changes. ​

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High school students of color from Cambridge’s Rindge and Latin High School make national news by sharing their personal experience with racism at the high school.

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The Southern Poverty Law Center sued Collier County School District (Florida) saying that the system violated several federal and state laws by refusing to enroll immigrant teenagers aged 16 and older in high school, instead sending them to English Language adult education programs that don't teach other subjects or provide them a chance to earn credits toward a high school diploma. ​

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Massachusetts continues to lead the nation in NAEP scores.  However, achievement gaps continue.  Only 29% of black and Latino students in Massachusetts were proficient or higher in math.

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Boston families protest changes in BPS's start and end times. The school committee's decision was based on research showing that teenagers need more sleep, but many parents were outraged by how early their children would need to wake up and how many hours of child care they would need to fund after school.

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After a four year battle, the Texas Board of Education will give a final vote on a new Mexican American course for high school students on Friday, April 13, 2018.​

The Texas Education Agency gave preliminary approval for the course on April 11th.​

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Some African-American students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Broward County, Florida say their voices have been ignored by the media and others in the aftermath of the deadly school shooting.​

"I would say that our voices were not intentionally excluded, but they were not intentionally included," said Kai Koerber, a junior. "Now more than ever, it is time to represent the diversity of our school, and the diversity in the world.”

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The World Health Organization declares COVID-19 a pandemic and President Donald Trump declares it a national emergency. As countries around the world order businesses to shut down and people to stay at home, schools plunge into remote learning. The pandemic itself--and the shift to remote learning--shine a light on the educational inequities that affect black and brown children.

A report published by the Society for Research on Child Development states: "Black Americans are contracting and dying from COVID-19 at rates that far exceed other racial and ethnic groups. Through inequitable policies and practices, Black Americans are forced into conditions that elevate their risk for COVID-19, and consequently, place Black children at the epicenter of loss in multiple domains of life."

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George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and more murdered by police.

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Millions have mobilized in support of Black Lives Matter in protests that still continue to today. Data suggest that over 26 million people in the United States have participated in demonstrations, making it the largest movement in the country’s history, the New York Times reports.

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Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA) and Asian Pacific Policy & Planning Council (A3PCON) launch “Stop AAPI Hate” website to track incidents of COVID-19 discrimination.

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The White House’s Office of Management and Budget notifies agency heads Sept. 4 that federal workplaces will no longer be allowed to conduct “divisive, anti-American propaganda” training that focuses on race theory and white privilege. The Office of Personnel Management must review and approve training materials going forward.

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The video of the police shooting 13-year-old Adam Toledo in Chicago was released days after the killing of Duarte Wright in Brooklyn Center, MN and the pepper spraying of Lt. Caron Nazario in Windsor, VA all happening during the trial of Derek Chauvin. Ma'Kiah Bryant is shot within hours of Chauvin's conviction reading.

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Derek Chauvin is convicted on three accounts of murdering George Floyd.

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A mob of pro-Trump extremists stormed the Capitol, where Congress had convened to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. The insurrectionists clashed with police, scaled walls, broke windows, and carried Confederate and Trump flags throughout the Capitol’s halls. Members of Congress and their staffers sheltered in place before being evacuated from the building.

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After a year of remote and hybrid learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, school systems are designing plans for reopening. https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-continues-aggressive-plan-safely-reopen-schools

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Massachusetts Becomes Latest State to Ban Hair-Based Discrimination

Massachusetts has become the latest state to enact bans against hair-based discrimination after Gov. Charlie Baker signed The CROWN Act into law last month.

The bill – Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair, or CROWN Act – was introduced in March by Massachusetts state representative Steven Ultrino

CROWN is an acronym for 'Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair.' Black people historically have experienced and continue to experience prejudicial treatment in school, at work and elsewhere for wearing such hairstyles, as well as for the natural texture of their hair.

With this signing, Massachusetts becomes the 18th state to enact The CROWN Act or laws inspired by the CROWN Act, joining California, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Colorado, Washington, Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware, New Mexico, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, Illinois, Maine, Tennessee, and Louisiana.