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Jamestown Virginia became the first settlement in what would become the United States.

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The English arrive at Jamestown.
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On December 6, 1606, the journey to Virginia began on three ships: the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery. In 1607, 104 English men and boys arrived in North America to start a settlement. On May 13 they picked Jamestown, Virginia for their settlement, which was named after their King, James I. The settlement became the first permanent English settlement in North America.

The site for Jamestown was picked for several reasons, all of which met criteria the Virginia Company, who funded the settlement, said to follow in picking a spot for the settlement. The site was surrounded by water on three sides (it was not fully an island yet) and was far inland; both meant it was easily defensible against possible Spanish attacks. The water was also deep enough that the English could tie their ships at the shoreline - good parking! The site was also not inhabited by the Native population.

Once the spot was chosen the instructions sent by the Virginia Company, with the list of the council members (chosen by officials in England), was read. The names were kept in a sealed box on the ship (each ship had a sealed copy). The first President of the new Virginia colony was to be Edward Maria Winfield. The other six council members were: Bartholomew Gosnold, Christopher Newport, John Martin, John Ratcliffe, George Kendall, and John Smith.

By June 15, the fort was completed. It was triangle shaped with a bulwark at each corner, holding four or five pieces of artillery. The settlers were now protected against any attacks that might occur from the local Powhatan Indians, whose hunting land they were living on. Relations had already been mixed between the newcomers and the Powhatan Indians. On June 22, Captain Newport left for England to get more supplies for the new settlement.

Not long after Captain Newport left, the settlers began to succumb to a variety of diseases. They were drinking water from the salty or slimy river, which was one of several things that caused the death of many. The death tolls were high. They were dying from swellings, fluxes, fevers, by famine, and sometimes by wars. Food was running low, though then Chief Powhatan starting to send gifts of food to help the English. If not for the Powhatan Indians help in the early years, the settlement would most likely have failed, as the English would have died from the various diseases or simply starved.

By late 1609, the relationship between the Powhatan Indians and the English had soured as the English were demanding too much food during a drought. That winter of 1609-10 is known as the "Starving Time." During that winter the English were afraid to leave the fort, due to a legitimate fear of being killed by the Powhatan Indians. As a result they ate anything they could: various animals, leather from their shoes and belts, and sometimes fellow settlers who had already died. By early 1610 most of the settlers, 80-90% according to William Strachey, had died due to starvation and disease.

In May 1610, shipwrecked settlers who had been stranded in Bermuda finally arrived at Jamestown. Part of a fleet sent the previous fall, the survivors used two boats built on Bermuda to get to Jamestown. Sir Thomas Gates, the newly named governor, found Jamestown in shambles with the palisades of the fort torn down, gates off their hinges, and food stores running low. The decision was made to abandon the settlement. Less than a day after leaving, however, Gates and those with him, including the survivors of the "Starving Time," were met by news of an incoming fleet. The fleet was bringing the new governor for life, Lord Delaware. Gates and his party returned to Jamestown.

Harvesting Tobacco.
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In 1612, John Rolfe, one of many shipwrecked on Bermuda, helped turn the settlement into a profitable venture. He introduced a new strain of tobacco from seeds he brought from elsewhere. Tobacco became the long awaited cash crop for the Virginia Company, who wanted to make money off their investment in Jamestown.

On July 30, 1619, newly appointed Governor Yeardley called for the first representative legislative assembly. This was the beginning of representative government in what is now the United States of America.

In that same year, the first documented Africans were forcibly captured and brought to Virginia to work the tobacco fields. It is contested whether, at the time, these people were considered indentured servants or enslaved peoples however, historical evidence suggests they were often treated in a manner that more closely resembles enslavement as we understand it today.

Also in 1619, the Virginia Company recruited and shipped over about 90 women to become wives and start families in Virginia, something needed to establish a permanent colony. Over one hundred women, who brought or started families, had arrived in prior years, but 1619 was when establishing families became a primary focus.

Peace between the Powhatan Indians and the English, brought about by the conversion and marriage of Pocahontas (kidnapped by the English in 1613) and John Rolfe in 1614, ended in 1622. In March of that year the paramount chief, then Opechancanough, planned a coordinated attack against the English settlements. He was tired of the English encroachment on Powhatan lands. Jamestown escaped being attacked, due to a warning from a Powhatan boy living with the English. During the attack 350-400 of the 1,200 settlers were killed. After the attack, the Powhatan Indians withdrew, as was their way, and waited for the English to learn their lesson or pack up and leave. Once the English regrouped they retaliated and there was fighting between the two peoples for ten years, until a tenuous peace was reached in 1632.

On May 24, 1624, the Virginia Company's charter was revoked by King James I due to overwhelming financial problems and politics, and Virginia became a royal colony, which it remained until the Revolutionary War. This shift in control did not change the English policy towards the Powhatan Indians. Despite peace being declared in 1632, English encroachments on Powhatan lands continued undiminished as more settlers arrived in the Colony.

In April 1644, Opechancanough planned another coordinated attack, which resulted in the deaths of another 350-400 of the 8,000 settlers. The attack ended when Opechancanough was captured in 1646, taken to Jamestown, and shot in the back by a guard - against orders - and killed. His death brought an eventual death to the Powhatan Chiefdom; it was reduced to tributary status. His successor signed the first treaties with the English, which made the Powhatan Indians subjects of the English.

Bacon's Rebellion.
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Bacon's Rebellion, in 1676, saw more struggles in Jamestown. The settlers were unhappy about their tobacco being sold only to English merchants due to the Navigation Acts, high taxes, and attacks on outlying plantations by American Indians on the frontiers. Nathaniel Bacon got about 1,000 settlers to join him and take care of the "Indian Problem." Bacon forced Governor Berkeley to give him an official commission to attack the American Indians to blame. Bacon and his followers, however, did not differentiate between those tribes responsible for the attacks and those who were loyal to the English. Governor Berkeley declared Bacon a rebel and civil war erupted in the colony. In September, Bacon and his followers set fire to Jamestown, destroying 16 to 18 houses, the church and the statehouse. Not long after, in October, the Rebellion began its end with the death of Nathaniel Bacon of the "bloody flux." Eventually, many of the rebels were captured and 23 were hanged by Governor Berkeley.

As a result of Bacon's Rebellion, another treaty was signed between the English and the Virginia Indians. More tribes were part of this treaty than the one of 1646. The treaty set up more reservation lands and reinforced a yearly tribute payment of fish and game that the tribes had to make to the English.

In 1698, fire struck Jamestown again. The fire was evidently started by a prisoner awaiting execution in the nearby prison. The fire destroyed the prison and the statehouse, though many of the public records were saved. In 1699, the government and capital were moved from Jamestown to Middle Plantation, renamed Williamsburg. People continued to live on Jamestown Island and owned farm lands, but it ceased to be a town.

Today, Jamestown Island is a historic site, though there is still a private residence on the island. It is preserved by the National Park Service and Preservation Virginia for visitors to learn about the importance of Jamestown and what was born out of its being the first permanent English settlement in North America.

Bibliography

Egloff, Keith and Deborah Woodward. First People: The Early Indians of Virginia. Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1992.

Haile, Edward Wright (editor). Jamestown Narratives: Eyewitness Accounts of the Virginia Colony: The First Decade: 1607-1617. Chaplain: Roundhouse, 1998.

McCartney, Martha W. Jamestown: An American Legacy. Hong Kong: Eastern National, 2001.

Price, David A. Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Start of a New Nation. New York: Alfred A. Knoff, 2003.

Kelso, William M. and Beverly Straube. Jamestown Rediscovery 1994-2004. Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, 2004.

Wood, Karenne (editor). Charlottesville: Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, 2007.

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A Short History of Jamestown - Historic Jamestowne Part of Colonial National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service)

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On December 6, 1606, the journey to Virginia began on three ships: the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery. In 1607, 104 English men and boys arrived in North America to start a settlement. On May 13 they picked Jamestown, Virginia for their settlement, which was named after their King, James I.

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The Boston Latin school was the first public school in the US. It was a boys only secondary school and was strictly for college preparation. It is a fully functional school with students enrolled in grades 7-12.

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For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format. When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource.

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In 1636 John Harvard founded the private Ivy League school. Harvard is one of the most prestigious schools in the world with a 5% acceptance rate and a 97% graduation rate. Harvard named after John Harvard had multiple Nobel Peace Prizes and 7 elected U.S. presidents. One of the first colleges established in the New World.

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In 1642 Massachusetts passed a law that required parents to make sure their children had the ability to read. Five years later this law then passed the mandate of community schooling.

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The Old Deluder Satan Act of 1647, laid the basis for public schools in America and also future First Amendment conflicts regarding religious acts in public schools.

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Publishing of the New England Primer- 1680

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Publishing of the New England Primer- 1680

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The New England Primer prepared children for the reading of the Bible as it was a goal for children to read the words of God and be literate in them. This was important for them to be able to read and it helped them learn their ABC’s through the words of God.

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In 19th-century New England, the books that taught kids how to read had a Puritanical morbidity to them

smithsonianmag.com

Do you remember the books that helped you learn to read-maybe Dick and Jane, Dr. Seuss, or Clifford the Big Red Dog? No matter the answer, odds are your experience was very different from most Protestant children living in early America because your books probably did not contain a discussion of your imminent death.

Instead of an archaic version of See Spot Run, many youths in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries learned to read from sentences like: "From death's arrest no age is free/Young children too may die."

This catchy warning of childhood death comes from a little oak-bound book called the New England Primer. We have three of these books in the education collection, printed in 1808, 1811 and 1813. New England Primers, first printed in Boston in the 1680s, were extremely popular texts not only in New England but throughout the United States. The primers prepared young children to read the Bible because reading the word of God for oneself was the ultimate goal of literacy for many Christian Americans at this time.

New England Primers were ubiquitous in colonial America and in the early Republic. Although estimates vary, children's literature scholar David Cohen reports that, between 1680 and 1830, printers produced as many as eight million copies of the books. So for at least 150 years, millions of young American children learned their ABCs alongside repeated reminders of their impending deaths.

Take, for example, this page from one of the primers in our collections. In introducing six letters, it manages to invoke mortality four times, with two anthropomorphic representations of Death, one biblical murder and one coffin. Lest any child have forgotten that death forever lies in wait, mastering the letter "T" entails learning that "Time cuts down all,/Both great and small," and "Y" teaches that "Youth's forward lips/Death soonest nips."

New England Primers went through many different editions. Specific details changed, but the basic format remained relatively constant: each book had a pictorial alphabet like the one in the photograph above, lists of words with increasing numbers of syllables ("age" to "a-bom-i-na-tion," for example), prayers for children, and copious and unflinching mentions of death.

All the primers in our collection, for example, use the couplet "Xerxes the great did die/And so must you and I" (although, in fairness, "X" was a hard letter to illustrate before "xylophone" entered the English lexicon). Another of our primers devotes half a page to a meditation "On Life and Death," dominated by a woodcut illustration of a weapon-wielding skeleton. Others detailed the death of John Rogers, the Protestant martyr who was burned alive in 1555 by the Catholic Queen Mary I of England, or contained various versions of the catechism.

Why such a focus on death? It partially stems from high childhood mortality rates in an age before vaccines and modern medicine, when contagious diseases like scarlet fever, measles and whooping cough ran rampant. The emphasis can also be explained in part by the changing attitude toward death in the time of the primers' popularity, an attitude that increasingly saw death not as a morbid end but instead as a positive event that allowed righteous souls to pass into eternal paradise. This change can be seen not only in children's books like the primers but in many places, such as gravestones that started to carry messages celebrating the fate of the soul after death.

But the main reason for the seeming obsession with death in the New England Primer lies with the religious inclinations of the book, which was written primarily for the Protestant populations of New England and reflects a Puritan religious ideology. Puritans believed that children were born, as our 1813 primer states, with "foolishness . . . bound up" in their hearts, but still held that even small children were just as responsible as adults when it came to living godly, sinless lives in order to escape divine punishment. This view is articulated in a primer's "Verses for Little Children":
Emma Hastings completed an internship in the Division of Home and Community Life with curator Debbie Schaefer-Jacobs in summer 2017. She is a senior at Yale University.

What we might view now as normal childhood behavior was, to the target audience of the New England Primers, sure to get a child sent to hell when the next fever swept through town. Impressing upon children the shortness of life and the importance of avoiding "dreadful fiery hell" was thus a principal goal of childhood education.

This article originally appeared on O Say Can You See, the blog of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Read more back-to-school related posts about the history of school supplies, Catholic school uniforms, the 19th-century equivalent of "My Child is an Honor School Student" bumper stickers, and the evolution of school safety.

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Children Used to Learn About Death and Damnation With Their ABCs

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smithsonianmag.com Do you remember the books that helped you learn to read-maybe Dick and Jane, Dr. Seuss, or Clifford the Big Red Dog ? No matter the answer, odds are your experience was very different from most Protestant children living in early America because your books probably did not contain a discussion of your imminent death.

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Quaker schools have been leaders in providing equal access to education. For example, after the founding of the first Quaker school in the Americas in 1689, scholarships for the poor were introduced in 1701, girls were admitted in 1754, and all races were included beginning in 1770.

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Quaker (Friends) schools have been a part of the American educational landscape since 1689 when William Penn Charter School was founded in Philadelphia. Today, as Quakerism has become a modern faith, the tradition of Quaker schools continues to be true to its roots but also evolve in the modern world. Today there are seventy-eight Quaker, or Friends Schools in the United States. These schools enjoy a reputation for providing an excellent education that prepares the whole child, academically, spiritually, and interpersonally.

This emphasis on educating the whole child comes from the heart of Quakerism. A founding principle of Quakerism, expressed by George Fox (1624-1691) is that there is "that of God" in all people. For that reason, Quaker schools have put the development of the whole child at the forefront of education. Rather than focusing narrowly on academics or a closely proscribed set of outcomes, Quaker schools take seriously the idea that each student should be cherished for their own unique gifts and that all aspects of development be supported. At Friends schools, the idea that truth is available to all is reflected in an open-minded approach to curriculum and teaching, an emphasis on critical thinking skills, and a developmental approach to children and learning.

Stemming from the idea that all people have worth, Quaker schools have been leaders in providing equal access to education. For example, after the founding of the first Quaker school in the Americas in 1689, scholarships for the poor were introduced in 1701, girls were admitted in 1754, and all races were included beginning in 1770. Most modern students at Friends schools do not come from families who are Quaker. Rather, they come from families that represent many faith traditions and some who do not follow any faith tradition. However, families find the values that are taught in Friends schools to be compatible with their beliefs and values.

Core values of friends, such as simplicity, peace, equality, integrity, community, and service are reflected in the curriculum and culture of Quaker schools. Many engage in school-wide community building activities and community service. Teachers and students are often on a first-name basis, and many schools emphasize nature and conservation. Many Quaker schools have an emphasis on social justice in their curriculum.

Quaker schools also incorporate some of the practices of Quakers. These include the tradition of silent meeting, and the tradition of shared, anti-authoritarian decision making. Just as early Quakers developed the practice of coming together to wait in silence for guidance in silent meeting, many modern Quakers and most Quaker schools continue the tradition of gathering together in silence.

Chicago Friends School is a member of the Friends Council on Education , a national organization that supports Friends schools. Their website has many resources for families seeking to understand what a Friends school has to offer.

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What Is a Quaker School? - Chicago Friends School

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Quaker (Friends) schools have been a part of the American educational landscape since 1689 when William Penn Charter School was founded in Philadelphia. Today, as Quakerism has become a modern faith, the tradition of Quaker schools continues to be true to its roots but also evolve in the modern world.

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Thomas Jefferson proposed a two-track educational system where the two tracks are different. One for Laboring and the learned. Very few of the laboring class would advance due to scholarships. As Jefferson said, “ranking a few from the rubbish.”

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Historical Timeline of Public Education in the US

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Learn more about the history of public schools in the U.S. with this timeline.

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In February 1805, a group of New Yorkers met to found the New York Free School Society, committed to opening free schools for all children in New York City. Community leaders worried that even with private charity schools, many children were missing out on an education. The children who needed instruction the most were those whose parents didn’t follow a religion, so they were unlikely to attend a church-run school. Members could join the Free School Society for eight dollars in annual dues; for twenty-five dollars, a member would be entitled to send one child to the Free School; and for forty dollars a member could send two children.

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The Setting. New York City in 1805 had 141 teachers for a population of 75, 770. Most of these teachers maintained private schools, while others taught in the charity schools run by churches, the African Free School, or the school for girls established in 1802 by the Association of Women Friends for the Relief of the Poor. About one hundred children attended the Roman Catholic school, eighty-six the Trinity Church school, and seventy a school run by the Dutch Reformed Church. Though these schools were open to all children, each religious group believed it essential to inculcate all children with religious values as well as with a knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Mayor DeWitt Clinton, nephew of New York governor and Vice President George Clinton, and other community leaders worried that even with these private charity schools many children were missing out on an education. The children most in need of instruction were those whose parents did not have religion, and so would be unlikely to send their children to a church-run school.

Foundation. In February 1805, at Clinton's urging, a group of New Yorkers met to found the New York Free School Society, committed to opening free schools for all children in New York City. Clinton himself did not attend the meeting, which decided to submit a memorial to the state legislature to incorporate their society and to lend it whatever aid the legislature "deemed proper for the promotion of the benevolent object" of education. The legislature did incorporate the society but did not give it any money. Instead, the legislature limited its income to $10, 000 per year, to be raised through subscriptions.

Members could join the Free School Society for eight dollars in annual dues; for twenty-five dollars a member would be entitled to send one child to the Free School; and for forty dollars a member could send two children. The Free School Society elected its trustees, with DeWitt Clinton as president, and began soliciting money both to establish a Free School and to open a Sunday school for children unable to attend school during the week. Though both the Free School and the Sunday school were to be nonsectarian, not affiliated with any particular religion, still the "primary object" of both was "without observing the particular forms of any religious Society, to inculcate the sublime truths of religion and morality contained in the Holy Scriptures."

Raising Money. Though the trustees published their appeal in all of the city's newspapers, people were slow to contribute. DeWitt Clinton gave the first pledge, for $200, but no one else gave more than $50, and most contributions were for $25. In the first year the Free School Society raised $6, 501, and in May 1806, one year after it began its public campaign, it was able to open a school in New York City, with about forty pupils. In April 1806 Col. Henry Rutgers, a member of the State Board of Regents, donated a lot on Henry Street for the building of a school "to meet the wants of the indigent in that populous part of the city." Rutgers, who later served as president of the Free School's board of trustees, was a great benefactor of education: he contributed $5, 000 to help Queen's College in New Brunswick, New Jersey, remain open; the college thanked him by adopting his name.

EDUCATION FOR ALL

The Society for Establishing a Free School in the City of New York, a committee of the city's leading citizens, drafted this memorial to the state legislature on 25 February 1805:

Your memorialists have viewed with painful anxiety the multiplied evils which have accrued, and are daily accruing, to this city, from the neglected education of the children of the poor. They allude more particularly to that description of children who do not belong to, or are not provided for, by any religious society; and who, therefore, do not partake of the advantages arising from the different Charity Schools established by the various religious societies of this city. The condition of this class is deplorable indeed; reared up by parents who, from a variety of concurring circumstances, are become either indifferent to the best interests of their offspring, or, through intemperate lives, are rendered unable to defray the expense of their instruction, these miserable and almost friendless objects are ushered upon the stage of life, inheriting those vices which idleness and the bad example of their parents naturally produce. The consequences of this neglect of education are ignorance and vice, and all those manifold evils resulting from every species of immorality, by which public hospitals and alms-houses are filled with objects of disease and poverty, and society burthened by taxes for their support. In addition to these melancholy facts, it is to be feared that the laboring class in the community is becoming less industrious, less moral, and less careful to lay up the fruit of their earnings. What can this alarming declension have arisen from but the existence of an error which has ever been found to produce a similar effect-a want of a virtuous education, especially at that early period of life when the impressions that are made generally stamp the future character?

The rich having ample means of educating their offspring, it must be apparent that the laboring poor-a class of citizens so evidently useful-have a superior claim to the public support.

Trusting that the necessity of providing suitable means for the prevention of the evils they have enumerated will be apparent to your honorable Body, your memorialists respectfully request the patronage and assistance of the Legislature in establishing a free school or schools, in this city, for the benevolent purpose of affording education to those unfortunate children who have no other mode of obtaining it.

On 9 April 1805 the legislature incorporated the New York Free School Society, which opened its first school on 19 May 1806.

Source: A. Emerson Palmer, The New York Public School: Being a History of Free Education in the City of New York (New York: Macmil-

State and City Aid. Benefactors such as Clinton and Rutgers were rare. With limited resources and the aim of educating hundreds of pupils, the trustees of the Free School Society decided to adopt the educational system of Joseph Lancaster, an English educational reformer. In January 1807 the trustees once again approached the legislature for help in educating the city's poor; this time the legislature agreed to grant the society $4, 000 to build their school and another $1, 000 each year. This money would come from a tax on strong liquors and licensing fees charged to inns and taverns. The City of New York agreed to give the society a building next to the almshouse, along with $500 to repair it, in return for the society's agreeing to educate fifty children from the almshouse. By early 1808, 240 pupils were attending the school, which quickly outgrew its temporary space. In 1809 the Free School Society began building a new brick schoolhouse, 120 by 40 feet, able to hold five hundred children in a single room. The lot for the school, valued at $10, 000, had been donated by the city in return for the education of almshouse children. Construction cost $13, 000, though much of the material was donated, and the two carpenters and master mason who supervised the labor also donated their fees. DeWitt Clinton, president of the board of trustees, spoke at the dedication ceremony for New York Free School No. 1 on 11 December 1809, reviewing the history of the Free School movement, praising the Lancastrian system, and looking ahead to the future of education in the new republic. As one contemporary historian noted, "A building, dedicated to the gratuitous instruction of five hundred children, under the care of a single individual, was a spectacle, which had never before been exhibited on the American continent."

More Schools . Building its first school and planning for others put the society into debt. With its first school in operation, fund-raising proceeded more smoothly. In 1810 the society raised $13, 000, and its second school, built on land donated by Colonel Rutgers, opened in November 1811. The legislature too was willing to contribute more from the liquor tax, and Trinity Church donated land on Hudson and Christopher Streets for an additional school. By 1814 the two Free Schools in operation had an enrollment of nearly eight hundred children. In addition, the Female Association used two rooms in the schools to instruct three hundred girls in both academic subjects and needlework. The first school had been coeducational, but School No. 2 was, at first, for boys only. Gradually, the education of girls had been taken over by the Female Association.

Religious Instruction . Though one impetus for the Free School Society had been to set up a nonsectarian school for the poor, the trustees believed religious instruction necessary for the future welfare of both its students and the society in which they would live. Every Tuesday afternoon the schools would be conducted by women from various religious denominations who would instruct the students in the catechisms of the student's own church. According to school records, 271 students were Presbyterians; 186 were Episcopalians; 172 were Methodists; 119 were Baptists; 41 were Dutch Reformed; and 9 were Roman Catholic. The students were also to gather at their school on Sunday morning to be escorted to their own church by the class monitors.

Success. By 1819 the Free School Society was running four free schools in New York City, all under the Lancastrian system. In 1815 the Free Schools received $3, 708.14 from the state as its part of the State Common School Fund, established by the sale of the state's public lands. This Common School Fund, the society noted with thanks, was "one of the most important laws recorded in the annals of our Legislature," as it was a practical plan "calculated to confer lasting benefits on the community." The beginning of the Free School movement in New York City, relying on private philanthropy and public support and bringing a community together to educate the poor, was one of the most important developments in the early republic.

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

In a letter to Alexander Hamilton on 1 September 1796, President George Washington explained his thoughts on the need for a national university:

... I mean Education generally as one of the surest means of enlightening and giving just ways of thinking to our Citizens, but particularly the establishment of a University; where the youth from all parts of the United States might receive the polish of Erudition in the Arts, Sciences, and Belle Letters; and where those who were disposed to run a political course, might not only be instructed in the theory and principles, but (this Seminary being at the Seat of the General Government) where the Legislature would be in Session half the year, and the interests and politics of the Nation of course would be discussed, they would lay the surest foundation for the practical part also.

But that which would render it of the highest importance, in my opinion, is, that the Juvenile period of life, when friendships are formed, and habits established that will stick by one; the youth, or young men from different parts of the United States would be assembled together, and would by degrees discover that there was not cause for those jealousies and prejudices which one part of the Union had imbibed against another part: of course sentiments of more liberality in the general policy of the Country would result from it. What, but the mixing of people from different parts of the United States during the War rubbed off these impressions? A century in the ordinary intercourse, would not have accomplished what the Seven years association in Arms did: but that ceasing, prejudices are beginning to revive again, and never will be eradicated so effectually by any other means as the intimate intercourse of characters in early life, who, in all probability, will be at the head of the councils of this country in a more advanced stage of it.

Source: Sol Cohen, ed., Education in the United States: A Documentary History (New York: Random House, 1974).

A. Emerson Palmer, The New York Public School (New York: Macmillan, 1905).

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The Setting. New York City in 1805 had 141 teachers for a population of 75, 770. Most of these teachers maintained private schools, while others taught in the charity schools run by churches, the African Free School, or the school for girls established in 1802 by the Association of Women Friends for the Relief of the Poor.

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The first in the country founded to provide young women with an education comparable to that of college-educated young men. Women were barred from colleges. Although academies for girls existed, their curricula were limited to such “female arts” as conversational French and embroidery. The seminary’s first class consisted of 90 girls from across the United States who enrolled in mathematics, science, history, foreign language, and literature courses. Willard herself not only served as an instructor but even wrote some of the school’s textbooks. Troy Female Seminary soon gained a reputation as an outstanding institution. It proved to those who were skeptical that women were just as capable as men of comprehending difficult subjects.

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Troy Female Seminary, subsequently called (from 1895) Emma Willard School, American educational institution, established in 1821 by Emma Hart Willard in Troy, New York, the first in the country founded to provide young women with an education comparable to that of college-educated young men. At the time of the seminary's founding, women were barred from colleges. Although academies for girls existed, their curricula were limited to such "female arts" as conversational French and embroidery.

Willard, who had opened a school of her own in Middlebury, Vermont (1814), presented the outline for her proposed seminary to the New York legislature in her "Plan for Improving Female Education." This document described a course of study that would provide girls with a broad-based and rigorous education. Her idea was favourably received in some quarters, and the city of Troy raised $4,000 in taxes to begin construction of the school envisioned by Willard.

The seminary's first class consisted of 90 girls from across the United States who enrolled in mathematics, science, history, foreign language, and literature courses. Willard herself not only served as an instructor but even wrote some of the school's textbooks. Troy Female Seminary soon gained a reputation as an outstanding institution. It proved to those who were skeptical that women were just as capable as men of comprehending difficult subjects.

After the Civil War, owing to changes in economic conditions and in public sentiment about education for women, the seminary became a day school. In memory of its founder, the seminary changed its name to the Emma Willard School. Since 1910, when it moved to a new location in Troy, the school has erected additional buildings. Beginning in 1916, Russell Sage College operated briefly under the Emma Willard School charter, remaining in the old Willard buildings after it received its own charter in 1927. The Emma Willard School continued as a secondary school in its mission of providing high-quality education to young women.

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Troy Female Seminary | school, Troy, New York, United States

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Troy Female Seminary, American educational institution, established in 1821 by Emma Hart Willard in Troy, New York, the first in the country founded to provide young women with an education comparable to that of college-educated young men. At the time of the seminary's founding, women were barred

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In 1821, the first public high school was created by a group called the Boston Latin School. The first high school they made was called the "The English High School of Latin." Knowing about the history of education is important in modern education because in order to learn about the past, we need to learn about past education and what made what lead up to what, so we can fix past mistakes for the future.

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Public schools in the United States have an interesting history. Learn about how these public institutions developed into a cornerstone of our country's education.

Public schools enjoy a long and illustrious history in the United States, with the first schools in the country dating almost as far back as the arrival of the Puritans on U.S. shores. Since that time, the purpose, philosophy, and goals of public education have been examined and debated, up to the development of the public school system still in existence today. How we got to the current point in public education warrants a look back centuries at the very first schools dedicated to educating American youth.

Puritans Recognize Need for Public Education

As early as the 17 th century, the need for public education was recognized by the Puritans living on American shores at the time. This population determined education was essential both for teaching basic academic skills and core religious values. Boston Latin School was established as the first public high school in 1635 in Boston, Massachusetts. The school is still in operation to this day.

This video looks at early American education.

The Massachusetts Bay Colony decreed in 1647 that towns of 50 people should have a public elementary school, and those with populations of over 100 should have a Latin school. The primary function of schools at this time was to teach reading so that children learned to read the Bible. Schools also taught Puritan values and basic information about the Calvinist religion, according to Applied Research Center.

Religion Dominates Early Schools

Throughout the 18 th century, the focus on schooling was either private or religious in nature. Many of the public schools developed the century prior were replaced by private academies during this era. Some of the early private schools, such as Phillips Exeter Academy, Deerfield Academy, and Phillips Andover Academy, serving only male students, became feeder schools for the Ivy League colleges, according to Wikipedia. Many of these schools became co-educational institutions in the 1970s and are still in operation today.

During this era, Thomas Jefferson called for the establishment of an educational system funded by taxpayer dollars. Jefferson's plan included a two-track program that divided "the labored and learned." However, Jefferson's plans fell to deaf ears at the time, and it wasn't until the next century that the system Jefferson envisioned came to fruition. Until then, many of the public schools in the 18 th century were overseen by ministers and were free to both male and female students. Some received a portion of government funding to help pay for their operations.

Public Education Expands in the 19th Century

During the 19 th century, public education began the evolution into today's system, with a number of public schools cropping up in the 1840s. PBS describes the 19th-century classroom as a sparse facility, depicting the prevalence of frugality within the agricultural community of the time. Learning tools consisted of slates and chalk, as well as a handful of school books. Oral examinations and recitations were a common daily occurrence. A single teacher taught children of all ages and abilities.

Schooling was a community-wide effort, with residents of the community taking turns providing supplies like firewood, building desks for the students and cleaning the stable where the horses that students rode to school were kept during the day. Even the teacher of the school, who was generally a young, unmarried woman, was cared for by the community, frequently staying in the homes of local families, and rotating locations as needed.

This video describes teaching in an early classroom.

Horace Mann, who became the Massachusetts Secretary of Education in 1837, was instrumental in the establishment of a broader network of public schools. Mann focused on training teachers and expanding elementary education to all students. Mann also established the system of separating students by age and grade, which eventually eliminated the multi-grade classroom. Mann's "common school" movement caught fire in the northern states but did not spread to the southern region until approximately the turn of the century. At that point, 34 states had established compulsory schooling laws that required students to attend school until a particular age. In most states, that age was 14. Four schools in the south adopted similar education laws.

Segregation Key Issue in 20th Century Schools

At the end of the 19 th century, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, which allowed the state of Louisiana to offer "separate but equal" railroad cars to black and white passengers. The idea also trickled into public education, as separate schools were set up for black children and white students. Eventually, racial segregation in public schools becomes a federal mandate, with "black" schools frequently receiving less funding than schools in wealthier white communities.

It was not until 1954 and the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, that desegregation became the new buzzword in public education. The ruling stated that segregation of schools was "inherently unequal" and had to be abolished. Despite the ruling, it took many school districts a number of years to do away with segregation completely. Today, some would argue that segregation is still in effects, simply based on the way schools are zoned. However, public schools are no longer able to discriminate against students, based on their race or their gender.

Today's schools look very different from those early schoolhouses of the 19 th century. School buildings are filled with multiple classrooms for students to be separated by grade, class, and ability. Technology has seeped into all corners of the public school, as students learn to prepare for the new workforce. Many issues still surround public schools today, and the system is far from perfect. However, the dramatic evolution of public education in the U.S. demonstrates the country's dedication to educating all citizens for a successful, prosperous republic.

Questions? Contact us on Facebook. @publicschoolreview

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A History of Public Schools | PublicSchoolReview.com

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Public schools in the United States have an interesting history. Learn about how these public institutions developed into a cornerstone of our country's education. Public schools enjoy a long and illustrious history in the United States, with the first schools in the country dating almost as far back as the arrival of the Puritans on U.S.

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This law was made to allow all grades of public school open to all students free of charge. This was first established in Massachusetts, and as a result of this law all towns that contained more than 500 families would have to have a public high school available to both males and females.

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During Mann’s lifetime, the quality of education had decreased as economy-minded local districts gradually took control of how schools were run. A reform movement, committed to stopping the decline, arose. This resulted in the establishment of a state board of education in 1837, in charge of collecting and publicizing school information across the state. Mann became the first secretary of this board.

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Horace Mann, (born May 4, 1796, Franklin, Massachusetts, U.S.-died August 2, 1859, Yellow Springs, Ohio), American educator, the first great American advocate of public education, who believed that, in a democratic society, education should be free and universal, nonsectarian, democratic in method, and reliant on well-trained professional teachers.

Mann grew up in an environment ruled by poverty, hardship, and self-denial. He was taught briefly and erratically by comparatively poor teachers, but he managed to educate himself in the Franklin town library, and, with tutoring in Latin and Greek from Samuel Barrett (later a leading Unitarian minister), he gained admission at the age of 20 to the sophomore class at Brown University (Providence, Rhode Island). He did brilliant work at Brown, manifesting great interest in problems of politics, education, and social reform; his valedictory address, on the gradual advancement of the human race in dignity and happiness, was a model of humanitarian optimism, offering a way in which education, philanthropy, and republicanism could combine to allay the wants and shortcomings that beset mankind.

Upon graduation in 1819 Mann chose law as a career. He read law briefly with a Wrentham, Massachusetts, lawyer, taught for a year at Brown, and then studied at Litchfield (Connecticut) Law School, which led to his admission to the bar in 1823. He settled in Dedham, Massachusetts, and there his legal acumen and oratorical skill soon won him a seat in the state House of Representatives, where he served from 1827 to 1833. There he led the movement that established a state hospital for the insane at Worcester, the first of its kind in the United States. In 1833 he moved to Boston, and from 1835 to 1837 he served in the Massachusetts Senate, of which he was president in 1836.

Of the many causes Mann espoused, none was dearer to him than popular education. Nineteenth-century Massachusetts could boast a public school system going back to 1647. Yet during Mann's own lifetime, the quality of education had deteriorated as school control had gradually slipped into the hands of economy-minded local districts. A vigorous reform movement arose, committed to halting this decline by reasserting the state's influence. The result was the establishment in 1837 of a state board of education, charged with collecting and publicizing school information throughout the state. Much against the advice of friends, who thought he was tossing aside a promising political career, Mann accepted the first secretaryship of this board.

Endowed with little direct power, the new office demanded moral leadership of the highest order and this Mann supplied for 11 years. He started a biweekly Common School Journal in 1838 for teachers and lectured widely to interested groups of citizens. His 12 annual reports to the board ranged far and wide through the field of pedagogy, stating the case for the public school and discussing its problems. Essentially his message centred on six fundamental propositions: (1) that a republic cannot long remain ignorant and free, hence the necessity of universal popular education; (2) that such education must be paid for, controlled, and sustained by an interested public; (3) that such education is best provided in schools embracing children of all religious, social, and ethnic backgrounds; (4) that such education, while profoundly moral in character, must be free of sectarian religious influence; (5) that such education must be permeated throughout by the spirit, methods, and discipline of a free society, which preclude harsh pedagogy in the classroom; and (6) that such education can be provided only by well-trained, professional teachers. Mann encountered strong resistance to these ideas-from clergymen who deplored nonsectarian schools, from educators who condemned his pedagogy as subversive of classroom authority, and from politicians who opposed the board as an improper infringement of local educational authority-but his views prevailed.

Mann resigned the secretaryship in 1848 to take the seat of former Pres. John Quincy Adams in the U.S. House of Representatives. There he proved himself to be a fierce enemy of slavery. In 1853, having run unsuccessfully for the Massachusetts governorship a year before, he accepted the presidency of Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, a new institution committed to coeducation, nonsectarianism, and equal opportunity for African Americans. There, amidst the usual crises attendant upon an infant college, Mann finished out his years. Two months before he died, he had given his own valedictory to the graduating class: "I beseech you to treasure up in your hearts these my parting words: Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity."

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Horace Mann, American educator, the first great American advocate of public education, who believed that, in a democratic society, education should be free and universal, nonsectarian, democratic in method, and reliant on well-trained professional teachers. Learn more about Mann's life and career.

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A normal school was training for teachers. It was the first form of education to get teachers more informed about what they do. The first normal school in the US was founded in Lexington, Massachusetts, in 1839. In simple terms, it was basically the start of college.

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This 1852 Law required every city and town to offer primary school and focus on grammar and arithmetic. And if parents didn’t oblige to this law they were fined and in some cases stripped of parental rights. These laws were designed to take education out of the hands of parochial schools and put it more in the hands of the state.

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Better known as separate but equal. There were different schools for whites and colors. They had “equal” facilities. This went to court for violating the fourteenth amendment, but ended up not violating it.

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Contents

1. Plessy v. Ferguson: Background and Context

2. Black Resistance to Segregation

3. Supreme Court Ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson

4. John Marshall Harlan's Dissent

5. Plessy v. Ferguson Significance

Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine. The case stemmed from an 1892 incident in which African American train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a car for Black people. Rejecting Plessy's argument that his constitutional rights were violated, the Supreme Court ruled that a law that "implies merely a legal distinction" between white people and Black people was not unconstitutional. As a result, restrictive Jim Crow legislation and separate public accommodations based on race became commonplace.

Plessy v. Ferguson: Background and Context

After the Compromise of 1877 led to the withdrawal of federal troops from the South, Democrats consolidated control of state legislatures throughout the region, effectively marking the end of Reconstruction.

Southern Black people saw the promise of equality under the law embodied by the 13th Amendment, 14th Amendment and 15th Amendment to the Constitution receding quickly, and a return to disenfranchisement and other disadvantages as white supremacy reasserted itself across the South.

As historian C. Vann Woodward pointed out in a 1964 article about Plessy v. Ferguson, white and Black Southerners mixed relatively freely until the 1880s, when state legislatures passed the first laws requiring railroads to provide separate cars for "Negro" or "colored" passengers.

Florida became the first state to mandate segregated railroad cars in 1887, followed in quick succession by Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana and other states by the end of the century.

Black Resistance to Segregation

As Southern Black people witnessed with horror the dawn of the Jim Crow era, members of the Black community in New Orleans decided to mount a resistance.

At the heart of the case that became Plessy v. Ferguson was a law passed in Louisiana in 1890 "providing for separate railway carriages for the white and colored races." It stipulated that all passenger railways had to provide these separate cars, which should be equal in facilities.

Homer Adolph Plessy, who agreed to be the plaintiff in the case aimed at testing the law's constitutionality, was of mixed race; he described himself as "seven-eighths Caucasian and one-eighth African blood."

On June 7, 1892, Plessy bought a ticket on a train from New Orleans bound for Covington, Louisiana, and took a vacant seat in a whites-only car. After refusing to leave the car at the conductor's insistence, he was arrested and jailed.

Convicted by a New Orleans court of violating the 1890 law, Plessy filed a petition against the presiding judge, Hon. John H. Ferguson, claiming that the law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Supreme Court Ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson

Over the next few years, segregation and Black disenfranchisement picked up pace in the South, and was more than tolerated by the North. Congress defeated a bill that would have given federal protection to elections in 1892, and nullified a number of Reconstruction laws on the books.

Then, on May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court delivered its verdict in Plessy v. Ferguson. In declaring separate-but-equal facilities constitutional on intrastate railroads, the Court ruled that the protections of 14th Amendment applied only to political and civil rights (like voting and jury service), not "social rights" (sitting in the railroad car of your choice).

In its ruling, the Court denied that segregated railroad cars for Black people were necessarily inferior. "We consider the underlying fallacy of [Plessy's] argument," Justice Henry Brown wrote, "to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it."

John Marshall Harlan's Dissent

Alone in the minority was Justice John Marshall Harlan, a former slaveholder from Kentucky. Harlan had opposed emancipation and civil rights for freed slaves during the Reconstruction era - but changed his position due to his outrage over the actions of white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

Harlan argued in his dissent that segregation ran counter to the constitutional principle of equality under the law: "The arbitrary separation of citizens on the basis of race while they are on a public highway is a badge of servitude wholly inconsistent with the civil freedom and the equality before the law established by the Constitution," he wrote. "It cannot be justified upon any legal grounds."

Plessy v. Ferguson Significance

The Plessy v. Ferguson verdict enshrined the doctrine of "separate but equal" as a constitutional justification for segregation, ensuring the survival of the Jim Crow South for the next half-century.

Intrastate railroads were among many segregated public facilities the verdict sanctioned; others included buses, hotels, theaters, swimming pools and schools. By the time of the 1899 case Cummings v. Board of Education, even Harlan appeared to agree that segregated public schools did not violate the Constitution.

It would not be until the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, at the dawn of the civil rights movement, that the majority of the Supreme Court would essentially concur with Harlan's opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson..

Writing the majority opinion in that 1954 case, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote that "the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place" in public education, calling segregated schools "inherently unequal," and declaring that the plaintiffs in the Brown case were being "deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment."
READ MORE: Civil Rights Movement Timeline
Sources

C. Vann Woodward, " Plessy v. Ferguson: The Birth of Jim Crow," American Heritage (Volume 15, Issue 3: April 1964).
Landmark Cases: Plessy v. Ferguson, PBS: The Supreme Court - The First Hundred Years.
Louis Menand, "Brown v. Board of Education and the Limits of Law," The New Yorker (February 12, 2001).
Today in History - May 18: Plessy v. Ferguson, Library of Congress.

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Plessy v. Ferguson: Background and Context Black Resistance to Segregation Supreme Court Ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson John Marshall Harlan's Dissent Plessy v. Ferguson Significance Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine.

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The U.S. legislation gave federal aid to vocational schooling systems, through agricultural and industrial practices. Although it was an improvement in the educational system, it highlighted the inequalities in the classroom.

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Table of Contents

Smith-Hughes Act, formally National Vocational Education Act, U.S. legislation, adopted in 1917, that provided federal aid to the states for the purpose of promoting precollegiate vocational education in agricultural and industrial trades and in home economics. Although the law helped to expand vocational courses and enrollment, it generally did not live up to the lofty aspirations of its supporters. Historians have also pointed to its unintended effects in differentiating the secondary-education curriculum in ways that often reinforced existing class- and race-based inequalities.

Historical background

In the late 19th century, a variety of groups in the United States began to advocate for the creation of new vocational-education programs in schools, reflecting the then widespread belief in the moral, educative, and practical value of work. Many supporters of vocational education, including businessmen and labour unions, saw it as a solution to problems of skilled-labour shortages and unemployment in a rapidly industrializing society. Employers hoped it would weaken the power of labour unions over the training of industrial workers, whereas workers saw it as an opportunity for individual advancement and as a means of dignifying labour itself. Many philanthropists and moral reformers regarded vocational training as an opportunity to inculcate the moral value of work, which they feared was being eroded by modern society. In contrast, many educators and pedagogical reformers saw vocational education as a way to put into practice new teaching methods and philosophies that emphasized cultivating children's interests through active learning.

In the early 20th century, supporters of vocational education began to advocate more systematic programs and to emphasize its economic and utilitarian values more forcefully. Business groups, for example, began to argue that American economic progress and global competitiveness demanded public funding of trade instruction. In 1905 the Massachusetts state legislature appointed the Massachusetts Commission on Industrial and Technical Education, also known as the Douglas Commission, which recommended in its final report that the state expand technical and industrial training. However, it did not clearly address the question of whether such education should take place in existing public schools or in newly created vocational schools. During the next decade, Massachusetts and many other states, as well as individual cities, established both separate technical and trade schools and vocational programs within existing public school systems.

Origins and passage

The findings of the Douglas Commission were embraced by a diverse group of reformers who promoted vocational education at local, state, and national levels. In 1906 they formed the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education (NSPIE) to lobby on behalf of vocational education and to coordinate the efforts of supporting groups, including the American Federation of Labor, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Education Association, and social welfare reformers.

Eight years later, the congressionally appointed Commission on National Aid to Vocational Education declared that national vocational education was an urgent necessity. Vocational training, it argued, would vitalize general education and democratize schooling by adapting it to the real needs of children, promote industrial efficiency and national prosperity, decrease labour and social unrest, and promote a higher standard of living for workers. It recommended federal grants to the states to promote vocational education, with particular focus on training vocational teachers. It proposed legislation that was later introduced by two of the commission's members, Sen. Hoke Smith and Rep. D.M. Hughes, both of Georgia, and passed by Congress (with minor modifications) in 1917 as the National Vocational Education Act, subsequently known as the Smith-Hughes Act.

Provisions and effects

As one of the first federal grant-in-aid programs, the Smith-Hughes Act provided federal aid on a matching basis to states and established requirements regarding how the money was to be used. It created the Federal Board of Vocational Education to oversee the distribution of funds and approve state plans. The act required every participating state to designate or create a state-level body that would act as a liaison between the federal board and local districts; it thereby augmented the power of state governments at a time when they were beginning to expand their oversight of local schools in new ways.

Although much of the advocacy had centred on industrial education, Congress included agriculture and home economics within its definition of vocational subjects. In framing the act, one area of controversy had been the vocational education of girls: should they be trained to work in industry, the home, or both? The final bill reached a compromise of sorts, providing aid for industrial classes in female-dominated trades such as millinery and garment making but ultimately emphasizing and expanding domestic instruction for women's work in the home. States and localities were permitted to decide for themselves whether vocational education should be provided in separate schools or within existing public schools, but they tended to the latter as a growing consensus emerged on the ideal of a comprehensive high school offering differentiated instruction to all students under the same roof.

The Smith-Hughes Act succeeded in expanding vocational education throughout the country. Subsequent federal laws extended and expanded aid for vocational education as national interest in economic development and youth training intensified during the Great Depression, World War II, and beyond. The proportion of students enrolled in the programs eventually leveled off, however, and it remained far lower than supporters had hoped, rarely reaching 20 percent. Later assessments of the law were mixed, as some studies showed that vocational education did not necessarily produce economic benefits for the individual. Critics also pointed out that the job training provided in these programs often lagged behind the actual needs of industry.

Historians have noted the unintended consequences of the Smith-Hughes Act and related laws, particularly the increased differentiation of the curriculum and the sorting of students in schools that had previously embraced the ideal of a single common education for all. Vocational education not only separated students by gender but also sorted them into tracks that tended to reinforce the differential treatment of students based on class and race. African American students, for example, were often steered into vocational education programs on the assumption that they were not capable of academic training or would not be hired for jobs that required it. Historians have also pointed out that the programs helped to spread the ideology of "vocationalism," the view that the curriculum should be guided by economic priorities and values.
Tracy L. Steffes The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

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Smith-Hughes Act | Vocational Education in US

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Smith-Hughes Act, U.S. legislation, adopted in 1917, that provided federal aid to the states for the purpose of promoting precollegiate vocational education in agricultural and industrial trades and in home economics. Although the law helped to expand vocational courses and enrollment, it generally

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Nine African American students were the first to attend an all white school to end segregation. When trying to enter the school, the guards prevented them from coming in and sent them home. On September 29th, the nine returned back to school and were still denied entry. The NAACP was created to integrate schools.

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Imagine showing up to your first day of school and being greeted by an angry mob and the National Guard. On September 4, 1957 nine African American students arrived at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. They made their way through a crowd shouting obscenities and even throwing objects. Once the students reached the front door the National Guard prevented them from entering the school and were forced to go home. The students returned on September 29 th. This time they were protected by federal troops. The students were able to enter the school, finally integrating Central High School. This group of students became known as the "Little Rock Nine."

Many schools in the South refused to admit black students, even though the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision decreed school segregation unconstitutional. Despite resistance Civil Rights organizations worked to enroll black students in segregated schools. In Arkansas, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) recruited young girls and boys to integrate schools. Daisy Bates was the president of the Arkansas NAACP chapter. She was an expert organizer. Under Bates, the NAACP sued the Little Rock school board. Then she and her husband recruited nine students to integrate the all-white Central High School.

Bates took on the responsibility of preparing the "Little Rock Nine" for the violence and intimidation they would face inside and outside the school. She taught the students non-violent tactics and even became actively involved with Central High School's Parent organization. When the students were barred from entering the school the first time, Bates created a strategy to protect them from protestors.

Although the Supreme Court deemed segregation unconstitutional, the Arkansas governor refused to let the students enter. This clash between state and federal authorities culminated with President Dwight D. Eisenhower sending federal troops to protect the "Little Rock Nine." With the protection from the federal troops the nine African American students were able to attend Central High School.

By Arlisha Norwood, NWHM Fellow

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Imagine showing up to your first day of school and being greeted by an angry mob and the National Guard. On September 4, 1957 nine African American students arrived at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. They made their way through a crowd shouting obscenities and even throwing objects.

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was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality

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The Plessy Decision

Although the Declaration of Independence stated that "All men are created equal," due to the institution of slavery, this statement was not to be grounded in law in the United States until after the Civil War (and, arguably, not completely fulfilled for many years thereafter). In 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified and finally put an end to slavery. Moreover, the Fourteenth Amendment (1868) strengthened the legal rights of newly freed slaves by stating, among other things, that no state shall deprive anyone of either "due process of law" or of the "equal protection of the law." Finally, the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) further strengthened the legal rights of newly freed slaves by prohibiting states from denying anyone the right to vote due to race.

Despite these Amendments, African Americans were often treated differently than whites in many parts of the country, especially in the South. In fact, many state legislatures enacted laws that led to the legally mandated segregation of the races. In other words, the laws of many states decreed that blacks and whites could not use the same public facilities, ride the same buses, attend the same schools, etc. These laws came to be known as Jim Crow laws. Although many people felt that these laws were unjust, it was not until the 1890s that they were directly challenged in court. In 1892, an African-American man named Homer Plessy refused to give up his seat to a white man on a train in New Orleans, as he was required to do by Louisiana state law. For this action he was arrested. Plessy, contending that the Louisiana law separating blacks from whites on trains violated the "equal protection clause" of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, decided to fight his arrest in court. By 1896, his case had made it all the way to the United States Supreme Court. By a vote of 8-1, the Supreme Court ruled against Plessy. In the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, Justice Henry Billings Brown, writing the majority opinion, stated that:

"The object of the [Fourteenth] amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to endorse social, as distinguished from political, equality. . . If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane."

The lone dissenter, Justice John Marshal Harlan, interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment another way, stated, "Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens." Justice Harlan's dissent would become a rallying cry for those in later generations that wished to declare segregation unconstitutional.

Sadly, as a result of the Plessy decision, in the early twentieth century the Supreme Court continued to uphold the legality of Jim Crow laws and other forms of racial discrimination. In the case of Cumming v. Richmond (Ga.) County Board of Education (1899), for instance, the Court refused to issue an injunction preventing a school board from spending tax money on a white high school when the same school board voted to close down a black high school for financial reasons. Moreover, in Gong Lum v. Rice (1927), the Court upheld a school's decision to bar a person of Chinese descent from a "white" school.

The Road to Brown

(Note: Some of the case information is from Patterson, James T. Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy. Oxford University Press; New York, 2001.)

Early Cases

Despite the Supreme Court's ruling in Plessy and similar cases, many people continued to press for the abolition of Jim Crow and other racially discriminatory laws. One particular organization that fought for racial equality was the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) founded in 1909. For about the first 20 years of its existence, it tried to persuade Congress and other legislative bodies to enact laws that would protect African Americans from lynchings and other racist actions. Beginning in the 1930s, though, the NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund began to turn to the courts to try to make progress in overcoming legally sanctioned discrimination. From 1935 to 1938, the legal arm of the NAACP was headed by Charles Hamilton Houston. Houston, together with Thurgood Marshall, devised a strategy to attack Jim Crow laws by striking at them where they were perhaps weakest-in the field of education. Although Marshall played a crucial role in all of the cases listed below, Houston was the head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund while Murray v. Maryland and Missouri ex rel Gaines v. Canada were decided. After Houston returned to private practice in 1938, Marshall became head of the Fund and used it to argue the cases of Sweat v. Painter and McLaurin v. Oklahoma Board of Regents of Higher Education.

Pearson v. Murray (Md. 1936)

Disappointed that the University of Maryland School of Law was rejecting black applicants solely because of their race, beginning in 1933 Thurgood Marshall (who was himself rejected from this law school because of its racial acceptance policies) decided to challenge this practice in the Maryland court system. Before a Baltimore City Court in 1935, Marshall argued that Donald Gaines Murray was just as qualified as white applicants to attend the University of Maryland's School of Law and that it was solely due to his race that he was rejected. Furthermore, he argued that since the "black" law schools which Murray would otherwise have to attend were nowhere near the same academic caliber as the University's law school, the University was violating the principle of "separate but equal." Moreover, Marshall argued that the disparities between the "white" and "black" law schools were so great that the only remedy would be to allow students like Murray to attend the University's law school. The Baltimore City Court agreed and the University then appealed to the Maryland Court of Appeals. In 1936, the Court of Appeals also ruled in favor of Murray and ordered the law school to admit him. Two years later, Murray graduated.

Missouri ex rel Gaines v. Canada (1938)

Beginning in 1936, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund decided to take on the case of Lloyd Gaines, a graduate student of Lincoln University (an all-black college) who applied to the University of Missouri Law School but was denied because of his race. The State of Missouri gave Gaines the option of either attending an all-black law school that it would build (Missouri did not have any all-black law schools at this time) or having Missouri help to pay for him to attend a law school in a neighboring state. Gaines rejected both of these options, and, employing the services of Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, he decided to sue the state in order to attend the University of Missouri's law school. By 1938, his case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, and, in December of that year, the Court sided with him. The six-member majority stated that since a "black" law school did not currently exist in the State of Missouri, the "equal protection clause" required the state to provide, within its boundaries, a legal education for Gaines. In other words, since the state provided legal education for white students, it could not send black students, like Gaines, to school in another state.

Sweat v. Painter (1950)

Encouraged by their victory in Gaines' case, the NAACP continued to attack legally sanctioned racial discrimination in higher education. In 1946, an African American man named Heman Sweat applied to the University of Texas' "white" law school. Hoping that it would not have to admit Sweat to the "white" law school if a "black" school already existed, elsewhere on the University's campus, the state hastily set up an underfunded "black" law school. At this point, Sweat employed the services of Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and sued to be admitted to the University's "white" law school. He argued that the education that he was receiving in the "black" law school was not of the same academic caliber as the education that he would be receiving if he attended the "white" law school. When the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1950, the Court unanimously agreed with him, citing as its reason the blatant inequalities between the University's law school (the school for whites) and the hastily erected school for blacks. In other words, the "black" law school was "separate," but not "equal." Like the Murray case, the Court found the only appropriate remedy for this situation was to admit Sweat to the University's law school.

McLaurin v. Oklahoma Board of Regents of Higher Education (1950)

In 1949, the University of Oklahoma admitted George McLaurin, an African American, to its doctoral program. However, it required him to sit apart from the rest of his class, eat at a separate time and table from white students, etc. McLaurin, stating that these actions were both unusual and resulting in adverse effects on his academic pursuits, sued to put an end to these practices. McLaurin employed Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund to argue his case, a case which eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court. In an opinion delivered on the same day as the decision in Sweat, the Court stated that the University's actions concerning McLaurin were adversely affecting his ability to learn and ordered that they cease immediately.

Brown v. Board of Education (1954, 1955)

The case that came to be known as Brown v. Board of Education was actually the name given to five separate cases that were heard by the U.S. Supreme Court concerning the issue of segregation in public schools. These cases were Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Briggs v. Elliot, Davis v. Board of Education of Prince Edward County (VA.), Bolling v. Sharpe, and Gebhart v. Ethel. While the facts of each case are different, the main issue in each was the constitutionality of state-sponsored segregation in public schools. Once again, Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund handled these cases.

Although it acknowledged some of the plaintiffs'/plaintiffs claims, a three-judge panel at the U.S. District Court that heard the cases ruled in favor of the school boards. The plaintiffs then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

When the cases came before the Supreme Court in 1952, the Court consolidated all five cases under the name of Brown v. Board of Education. Marshall personally argued the case before the Court. Although he raised a variety of legal issues on appeal, the most common one was that separate school systems for blacks and whites were inherently unequal, and thus violate the "equal protection clause" of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Furthermore, relying on sociological tests, such as the one performed by social scientist Kenneth Clark, and other data, he also argued that segregated school systems had a tendency to make black children feel inferior to white children, and thus such a system should not be legally permissible.

Meeting to decide the case, the Justices of the Supreme Court realized that they were deeply divided over the issues raised. While most wanted to reverse Plessy and declare segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional, they had various reasons for doing so. Unable to come to a solution by June 1953 (the end of the Court's 1952-1953 term), the Court decided to rehear the case in December 1953. During the intervening months, however, Chief Justice Fred Vinson died and was replaced by Gov. Earl Warren of California. After the case was reheard in 1953, Chief Justice Warren was able to do something that his predecessor had not-i.e. bring all of the Justices to agree to support a unanimous decision declaring segregation in public schools unconstitutional. On May 14, 1954, he delivered the opinion of the Court, stating that "We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. . ."

Expecting opposition to its ruling, especially in the southern states, the Supreme Court did not immediately try to give direction for the implementation of its ruling. Rather, it asked the attorney generals of all states with laws permitting segregation in their public schools to submit plans for how to proceed with desegregation. After still more hearings before the Court concerning the matter of desegregation, on May 31, 1955, the Justices handed down a plan for how it was to proceed; desegregation was to proceed with "all deliberate speed." Although it would be many years before all segregated school systems were to be desegregated, Brown and Brown II (as the Courts plan for how to desegregate schools came to be called) were responsible for getting the process underway.

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History - Brown v. Board of Education Re-enactment

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The Plessy Decision Although the Declaration of Independence stated that "All men are created equal," due to the institution of slavery, this statement was not to be grounded in law in the United States until after the Civil War (and, arguably, not completely fulfilled for many years thereafter).

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The National Defense Education Act was implemented on August 21, 1958, in response to the acceleration of the space race with the Soviet Union. This law was essential to education because it provided federal funding to ensure well-trained teachers and to meet the national defense needs of the US. The NDEA authorized the use of over $1 billion over the course of seven years to improve science, math, and foreign language, classes. It established the legitimacy of federal funding of higher education and made funds available for low-cost student loans, which boosted public and private colleges and universities.

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Image courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration

Description

The National Defense Education Act (NDEA) was passed in 1958 in response to Soviet acceleration of the space race with the launch of the satellite Sputnik. The law provided federal funding to "insure trained manpower of sufficient quality and quantity to meet the national defense needs of the United States." In addition to fellowships and loans to students, the legislation bolstered education in the areas of science, mathematics, and modern foreign languages. The House report recommending passage of the bill stated: "It is no exaggeration to say that America's progress in many fields of endeavor in the years ahead-in fact, the very survival of our free country-may depend in large part upon the education we provide for our young people now." The NDEA authorized the appropriation of more than $1 billion over the next seven years to achieve its goals, making it the first example of comprehensive federal education legislation, and signaling the expansion of the role of the federal government in the education of citizens. Graham Arthur Barden, Chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor, submitted the conference report in the House. This version shows the conference report with typesetting marks, indicating how the printed version of the report should appear.

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National Defense Education Act | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives

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The National Defense Education Act (NDEA) was passed in 1958 in response to Soviet acceleration of the space race with the launch of the satellite Sputnik. The law provided federal funding to "insure trained manpower of sufficient quality and quantity to meet the national defense needs of the United States."

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In 1665, president Lyndon B Johnson created the Education Act, that created a landmark commitment where education gave equal access to all children.

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Social Welfare History Project Preserving the history of social reform and social welfare

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National Assessment of Education Progress - 1969

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National Assessment of Education Progress - 1969

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The National Assessment of Education Progress is a nationwide test to collect data on pupil’s knowledge, skills, and abilities. The purpose of the NAEP is to figure out what educational changes communities need to make to better the education system and experience.

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Standardized Testing established in 1970

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Standardized Testing established in 1970

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The growth in number and importance of state testing programs accelerated rapidly in the 1970s and has continued to grow ever since. The growth in the 1970s reflected, at least in part, the enhanced role of states in education policy. In the academic year 1969–1970, the majority–53 percent–of the funding for schools came from local agencies; states contributed 39 percent and the federal government provided 8 percent. A decade later, however, the state share of education funding had increased to 47 percent, and state governments became the dominant source of funding for schools.

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Statewide Testing Programs

State testing programs have a long history. New York State administered its first Regents' Examinations as early as 1865. Several other state programs had their beginnings in the 1920s, when new forms of achievement examinations-objective tests-were developed for and introduced in the schools. In 1937 representatives from fifteen state programs and nonprofit testing agencies met, under the leadership of the American Council on Education's Committee on Measurement and Guidance, to discuss common problems. The group continued to meet annually, except during World War II, for decades.

In 1957 President Dwight D. Eisenhower called attention to state testing programs when he indicated the need for nationwide testing of high school students and a system of incentives for qualified students to pursue scientific or professional careers. The subsequent passage of the National Defense Education Act of 1958 (NDEA) not only encouraged but gave financial support to testing, guidance, and scholarship programs.

The growth in number and importance of state testing programs accelerated rapidly in the 1970s and has continued to grow ever since. The growth in the 1970s reflected, at least in part, the enhanced role of states in education policy. In the academic year 1969-1970, the majority-53 percent-of the funding for schools came from local agencies; states contributed 39 percent and the federal government provided 8 percent. A decade later, however, the state share of education funding had increased to 47 percent, and state governments became the dominant source of funding for schools.

With that increased responsibility came demands for some form of accountability for results, and that meant state tests to determine if students were learning. At the same time, there was growing concern among public officials and the public about the quality of schools, fueled in part by the revelation that average scores on the SAT declined between 1963 and 1977. In response to these concerns, and the interest in accountability, a majority of states in the 1970s implemented some form of minimum competency test, which students were required to pass in order to graduate from high school. The number of states conducting such tests rose from a handful in 1975 to thirty-three in 1985.

The wave of state education reforms enacted following the publication in 1983 of A Nation at Risk, the report by the National Commission on Excellence in Education, further accelerated the growth in state testing. That report, which warned of a "rising tide of mediocrity" in America's schools, recommended that states adopt achievement tests to measure student performance, and many states responded to the call. By the end of the 1980s, forty-seven states were operating at least one testing program, up from thirty-nine in 1984.

This growth continued throughout the 1990s as well. The dominant role of states in education policy was symbolized near the beginning of that decade, when President George H. W. Bush called the nation's governors to an extraordinary "education summit" in Charlottesville, Virginia. In the wake of that meeting, the President and the governors agreed to a set of national education goals, which included the pledge that all students would be "competent in challenging subject matter" by the year 2000. The goals were enshrined into federal law in 1994; that same year, President Bill Clinton signed the Improving America's Schools Act, which required states to set challenging standards for student performance and implement tests that measure student performance against the standards. In response to the law, nearly all states revamped their existing tests or developed new tests, and as of 2001, all states except Iowa (where local school districts administer tests) had a statewide testing program; by one estimate, the amount spent by states on testing doubled, to $410 million, between 1996 and 2001.

The No Child Left Behind Act, which President George W. Bush signed into law in 2002, requires a significant increase in state testing. Under the law, states must administer annual reading and mathematics tests in grades three through eight, tests in science in at least three grade levels, and tests at the high school level. At the time of enactment, only nine states met the law's requirements for annual tests in reading and mathematics aligned to state standards.

Types of Tests

Although most state tests consist primarily of multiple-choice questions, there is considerable variation among the states. Thirty-four states include some short-answer questions in at least some of their tests, requiring students to write answers rather than select from among answers already provided, and eighteen states include questions requiring extended responses in subjects other than English language arts. (Nearly all states administer writing tests that ask for extended responses.) Two states, Kentucky and Vermont, assess student performance in writing through the use of portfolios, which collect students' classroom work during the course of a school year. The portfolios are scored by teachers, using common criteria.

The Maryland state test, the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP), is unusual in that it consists exclusively of open-ended questions. Students work in groups for part of the assessment, and many of the questions are interdisciplinary, requiring students to apply knowledge from English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies. In addition, the test is designed so that individual students take only a third of the complete assessment; as a result, scores are reported for schools, school districts, and the state, but not for individual students.

The MSPAP, like many state tests, was custommade to match the state's standards. In Maryland's case, the test was developed by state teachers; other states contract with commercial publishers to develop tests to match their standards. Such tests indicate the level of performance students attained, but do not permit comparisons with student performance from other states. The types of reports vary widely. Maryland, for example, specifies three levels of achievement: excellent, indicating outstanding accomplishment; satisfactory, indicating proficiency; and not met, indicating more work is required to attain proficiency. The state's goal is for 70 percent of students to reach the satisfactory level and 25 percent to reach the excellent level.

Other states, meanwhile, use commercially available tests that provide comparative information. The most commonly used tests are the Stanford Achievement Test, 9th Edition (or SAT-9), published by Harcourt Brace Educational Measurement, and the Terra Nova, published by CTB-McGraw-Hill. These tests are administered to representative samples of students, known as a norm group, and provide information on student performance compared with the norm group. For example, results might indicate that a student performed in the sixty-fifth percentile, meaning that the student performed better than sixty-five percent of the norm group. To provide both information on performance against standards and comparative information, some states employ hybrid systems. Maryland, for example, administers a norm-referenced test in grades in which the MSPAP is not used. Delaware, meanwhile, has embedded an abbreviated version of the SAT-9 within its state test.

Purposes

State tests are used for a variety of purposes. The most common is to provide information to parents and the public about student, school, and school system performance. The expectation is that this information can improve instruction and learning by pointing out areas of weakness that need additional attention.

In addition to providing reports to parents about their children's performance, forty-three states issue "report cards" on schools that indicate school performance; twenty states require that these report cards be sent to parents. The No Child Left Behind Act requires all states to produce school report cards and to disseminate them to parents.

States also place consequences for students on the results of tests. As of 2001 four states (Delaware, Louisiana, New Mexico, and North Carolina) make promotion for at least certain grades contingent on passing state tests, and another four states are planning to do so by 2004. In other states, school districts set policies for grade-to-grade promotion, and many districts use state tests as criteria for determining promotion from grade to grade. A 1997 survey of large school districts, conducted by the American Federation of Teachers, found that nearly 40 percent of the districts surveyed used standardized tests in making promotion decisions at the elementary school level, and 35 percent used tests in making such decisions at the middle school level. Although the survey did not indicate which tests the districts used, the report noted that statewide tests were among them.

More commonly states use tests as criteria for high school graduation. Seventeen states, as of 2001, make graduation from high school contingent on passing state tests, and another seven are expected to do so by 2008. These numbers are similar to those recorded in the early 1980s at the height of the minimum-competency era. Yet the graduation requirements first implemented in the late 1990s are different than those of the earlier period because the tests are different. Unlike the previous generation of tests, which measured basic reading and mathematical competencies, many of the newer tests tend to measure more complex skills along with, in many cases, knowledge and skills in science, social studies, and other subjects.

In most states with graduation test requirements, the tests are administered in the tenth or eleventh grade, and students typically have multiple opportunities to take the tests before graduation. In some states, such as New York, Tennessee, and Virginia, the graduation tests are end-of-course tests, meaning they measure a particular course content (such as algebra or biology) and are administered at the completion of the course.

States also use tests to reward high-performing students. For most of its existence, the New York State Regents' Examination was an optional test; students who took the test and passed earned a special diploma, called a Regents' Diploma. Beginning in 2000, however, the state required all students to take the examinations. Other states, such as Connecticut, continue to use tests to award special diplomas to students who pass them.

Some states, such as Michigan, provide scholarships for students who perform well on state tests. There, the state awards $2,500 scholarships to students attending Michigan colleges and universities who score in the top level of all four high school tests-mathematics, reading, science, and writing (the scholarships are worth $1,000 for students attending out-of-state institutions).

In addition to the consequences for students, states also use statewide tests to determine consequences for schools. As of 2001 thirty states rate schools based on performance, and half of those states use test scores as the sole measure of performance (the others use indicators such as graduation and attendance rates, in addition to test scores). In Texas, for example, the state rates each school and school district in one of four categories, based on test performance: exemplary, recognized, acceptable/academically acceptable, and low-performing/academically unacceptable. To earn a rating of exemplary, at least 90 percent of students-and 90 percent of each group of students (white, African American, Hispanic, and economically disadvantaged)-must pass the state tests in each subject area. Those with at least an 80 percent pass rate, overall and for each group, are rated recognized; those with a 55 percent pass rate are rated acceptable.

In eighteen states high-performing schools can earn rewards. In some cases, such schools earn recognition from the state. In North Carolina, for example, the twenty-five elementary and middle schools and ten high schools that register the highest level of growth in performance on state tests, along with those in which 90 percent of students perform at or above grade level, receive a banner to hang in the school and an invitation to a state banquet in their honor. Schools and teachers in high-performing or rapidly improving schools also receive cash awards in some states. In California, for example, 1,000 teachers in the schools with the largest gains on state tests receive a cash bonus of $25,000 each. Another 3,750 teachers receive $10,000 each, and another 7,500 receive $5,000 each. Schools that demonstrate large gains receive awards of $150 per pupil.

States also use test results to intervene in low-performing schools. In 2001 twenty-eight states provide assistance to low-performing schools. In most cases, such assistance includes technical assistance in developing improvement plans and financial assistance or priority for state aid. In some cases, such as in North Carolina and Kentucky, the state sends teams of expert educators to work intensively with schools that perform poorly on state tests. These experts help secure additional support and can recommend changes, such as replacing faculty members.

Twenty states also have the authority to levy sanctions on persistently low-performing schools. Such sanctions include withholding funds, allowing students to transfer to other public schools, "reconstitution," which is the replacing of the faculty and administration, and closure. However, despite this authority, few states have actually imposed sanctions. One that did so was Maryland, where in 2000 the state turned over the management of three elementary schools in Baltimore to a private firm.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 contains a number of provisions to strengthen the role of state tests in placing consequences on schools. Under the law, states are required to set a target for proficiency that all students are expected to reach within twelve years, and to set milestones along the way for schools to reach each year. Schools that fail to make adequate progress would be subject to sanctions, such as allowing students to transfer to other public schools, allowing parents to use funds for supplemental tutoring services, or reconstitution.

Effects of Statewide Testing

The rapid growth in the amount and importance of statewide testing since the 1970s has sparked intense scrutiny about the effects of the tests on students and on classroom practices.

Much of the scrutiny has focused on the effects of tests on students from minority groups who tend to do less well on tests than white students. In several cases, advocates for minority students have challenged tests in court, charging that the testing programs were discriminatory. In one well-known case, African-American high school students in Florida in the 1970s challenged that state's high school graduation test-on which the failure rate for African Americans was ten times the rate for white students-on the grounds that the African Americans had attended segregated schools for years and that denying them diplomas for failing a test preserved the effects of segregation. In its ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the use of the test, but said the state could not withhold diplomas from African-American students until students had no longer attended segregated schools ( Debra P. v. Turlington).

The court also held that students have a property right to a diploma, but that Florida could use a test to award to diplomas provided that students have adequate notice of the graduation requirement (four years, in that case) and that the test represents a fair measure of what is taught. Although the decision applied only to the states in the Fifth Circuit, the standards the court applied have been cited by other courts and other states since then.

In addition to the legal challenges, state tests have also come under scrutiny for their effects on student behavior-specifically, on the likelihood that students at risk of failing will drop out of school. There is some evidence that dropout rates are higher in states with graduation-test requirements. But it is unclear whether the tests caused the students to decide to drop out of school.

Many testing professionals have also expressed concern that the use of tests to make decisions like promotion or graduation may be inappropriate. Because test scores are not precise measures of a student's knowledge and skills, test professionals warn that any important decision about a student should not rest on a single test score; other relevant information about a student's abilities should be taken into account.

There has been a great deal of research on the effects of state tests on instruction. Since a primary purpose of the state tests is to provide information to improve instruction and learning, this research has been closely watched. The studies have generally found that tests exert a strong influence on classroom practice, but that this influence was not always salutary. On the positive side, the studies found that tests, particularly those with consequences attached to the results, focused the attention of students and educators on academic performance and created incentives for students and teachers to raise test scores. In addition, tests also encouraged teachers to focus on aspects of the curriculum that may have been underrepresented. For example, in states like California that introduced writing tests that assessed students' written prose (as opposed to multiple-choice tests that measured writing abilities indirectly), teachers tended to spend more time asking students to write in class and exposing them to a broader range of writing genres.

On the negative side, studies also found that state tests often encouraged teachers to focus on the material on the test at the expense of other content that may be worthwhile. In states that used exclusively multiple-choice basic skills tests, researchers found that many teachers-particularly those who taught disadvantaged students-spent a great deal of class time on drill and practice of low-level skills, as opposed to instruction on more complex abilities that the tests did not assess. At the same time, researchers found that in some cases teachers devoted a greater proportion of time to tested subjects and less to subjects not tested, like history and the arts, and that teachers spent class time on test-preparation strategies rather than instruction in academic content. The heavy influence of tests on instruction has led some commentators to question whether gains in test scores represent genuine improvements in learning or simply "teaching to the test."

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Statewide Testing Programs State testing programs have a long history. New York State administered its first Regents' Examinations as early as 1865. Several other state programs had their beginnings in the 1920s, when new forms of achievement examinations-objective tests-were developed for and introduced in the schools.

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Title IX is a law that was passed in 1972 that made it so that there could not be any discrimination against gender in any school that recieves federal money, basically any public school.

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In 1974 a case was brought against Governor Milliken about the segregation of the school district. In a 5-to-4 decision, the court ruled that with no evidence of any violation and not being justified by the Brown v Board of education they ruled that there was no need for racial balance in school, grade, and classroom, and the case was dismissed.

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The new law addressed barring states from discriminating against race gender nationalty or color and that public schools offer English classes to those who don’t speak it. The EEOA stated that schools have to accommodate students regardless of nationality and provide the resources necessary for students that don’t speak English. This ment that schools had to offer English classes for those who don’t speak it and classes in their native languages. In 1974 the Supreme Court ruled that schools offer classes in a students first language while they learn English as a second language. In 1982 the Court ruled that undocumented students both have the right to attend public schools and are obligated to do so, the same as all American children.

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The Columbine shooting on April 20, 1999 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, occurred when two teens went on a shooting spree, killing 13 people and wounding more than 20 others, before turning their guns on themselves and committing suicide. The Columbine shooting was, at the time, the worst high school shooting in U.S. history and prompted a national debate on gun control and school safety, as well as a major investigation to determine what motivated the gunmen, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17. Subsequent school shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida continue to raise questions about gun control in the United States.

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Table of Contents

1. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris

2. Columbine Shooting Victims

3. She Said 'Yes'

4. Columbine Shooting Investigation

5. Columbine Massacre Aftermath

The Columbine shooting on April 20, 1999 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, occurred when two teens went on a shooting spree, killing 13 people and wounding more than 20 others, before turning their guns on themselves and committing suicide.

The Columbine shooting was, at the time, the worst high school shooting in U.S. history and prompted a national debate on gun control and school safety, as well as a major investigation to determine what motivated the gunmen, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17. Subsequent school shootings, including at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, continue to raise questions about school safety and gun control in the United States.

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris

At approximately 11:19 a.m., Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, dressed in trench coats, began shooting fellow students outside Columbine High School, located in a suburb south of Denver. The pair then moved inside the school, where they gunned down many of their victims in the library.

By approximately 11:35 a.m., Klebold and Harris had killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded more than 20 other people. Shortly after 12 p.m., the two teens turned their guns on themselves.

Investigators later learned Harris and Klebold had arrived in separate cars at Columbine around 11:10 on the morning of the massacre. The two then walked into the school cafeteria, where they placed two duffel bags each containing a 20-pound propane bomb set to explode at 11:17 a.m.

The teens then went back outside to their cars to wait for the bombs to go off. When the bombs failed to detonate, Harris and Klebold began their shooting spree.

Columbine Shooting Victims

Victims of the Columbine shooting include Cassie Bernall, 17; Steven Curnow, 14; Corey DePooter, 17; Kelly Fleming, 16; Matthew Kechter, 16; Daniel Mauser, 15; Daniel Rohrbough, 15; William "Dave" Sanders, 47; Rachel Scott, 17; Isaiah Shoels, 18; John Tomlin, 16; Lauren Townsend, 18, and Kyle Velasquez, 16.

She Said 'Yes'

In the days immediately following the shootings, it was speculated that Harris and Klebold purposely chose athletes, minorities and Christians as their victims.

It initially was reported that one student, Cassie Bernall, was asked by one of the gunmen if she believed in God. When Bernall allegedly said, "Yes," she was shot to death. Her parents later wrote a book titled She Said Yes, honoring their daughter.

However, it later was determined the question was not posed to Bernall but to another student who already had been wounded by a gunshot. When that victim replied, "Yes," the shooter walked away.

Columbine Shooting Investigation

Subsequent investigations determined Harris and Klebold chose their victims randomly, and the two teens originally had intended to bomb their school, potentially killing hundreds of people.

There was speculation that Harris and Klebold committed the killings because they were members of a group of social outcasts called the Trenchcoat Mafia that was fascinated by Goth culture. It also was speculated that Harris and Klebold had carried out the shootings as retaliation for being bullied.

Additionally, violent video games and music were blamed for influencing the killers. However, none of these theories was ever proven.

Through journals left behind by Harris and Klebold, investigators eventually discovered the teens had been planning for a year to bomb the school in an attack similar to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

Investigative journalist Dave Cullen, author of the 2009 book Columbine, described Harris as "the callously brutal mastermind," while Klebold was a "quivering depressive who journaled obsessively about love and attended the Columbine prom three days before opening fire."

Did you know? The deadliest school shooting in U.S. history took place on April 16, 2007, when a gunman killed 32 people before killing himself at Virginia Tech, a university in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Columbine Massacre Aftermath

In the aftermath of the shootings, many schools across America enacted "zero-tolerance" rules regarding disruptive behavior and threats of violence from students. Columbine High School reopened in the fall of 1999, but the massacre left a scar on the Littleton community.

Mark Manes, the man who sold a gun to Harris and bought him 100 rounds of ammunition the day before the murders, was sentenced to six years in prison. Another man, Philip Duran, who introduced Harris and Klebold to Manes, also was sentenced to prison time.

Some victims and families of people killed or injured filed suit against the school and the police; most of these suits were later dismissed in court.

The list of school shootings in the United States grows longer every year, and includes the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, the Robb Elementary shooting in 2022, the University of Texas tower shooting in 1966, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018, the Santa Fe High School shooting in 2018 and the Umpqua Community College shooting in 2015, among others.

Gun control and disagreements over the interpretation of the Second Amendment continue to be a controversial issue in the United States, where 45,000 people die from gun-related injuries each year.

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Columbine High School Shooting: Victims & Killers

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The Columbine shooting on April 20, 1999 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, occurred when two teens went on a shooting spree, killing 13 people and wounding more than 20 others, before turning their guns on themselves and committing suicide.

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The No Child Left Behind Act introduced seven federal laws that reintroduced the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. This closed the gap between differing social status.

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The No Child Left Behind Act authorizes several federal education programs that are administered by the states. The law is a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Under the 2002 law, states are required to test students in reading and math in grades 3-8 and once in high school.

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Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. 

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Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. 

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is a principal source of federal funding to states for the improvement of secondary and post-secondary career and technical education programs across the nation. The purpose of the Act is to develop more fully the academic, career, and technical skills of secondary and post-secondary students who elect to enroll in career and technical education programs.

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The Perkins Collaborative Resources Network (PCRN) provides resources and tools for state directors and state staff who administer career and technical education programs.

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December 10th, 2015, President Barack Obama created the (ESSA). It was set shortly after the act in 2002 "No child left behind" was set in stone. Obama created this law to help students get along in the classroom, and make sure everyone knew everyone was just as equal as the others.

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The ESSA requires a State Plan, which will outline the state's strategies for implementing key requirements of the new law, including accountability and school improvement. Four work groups were critical in formulating this plan: Accountability Work Group, School Improvement Work Group, Educator Effectiveness Work Group, and an English Language Learner Work Group. The work groups started convening in April 2016 and worked through early 2017.

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The ESSA requires a State Plan, which will outline the state's strategies for implementing key requirements of the new law, including accountability and school improvement. Four work groups were critical in formulating this plan: Accountability Work Group, School Improvement Work Group, Educator Effectiveness Work Group, and an English Language Learner Work Group.

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Schools plan of racial classification violated students fourteenth amendment. When taken to court the majority found that the plan did not provide individualized consideration for students. Instead, the plan separated students into two groups, black and other. The court found that the enrollment plan did not meet the standard for constitutional consideration of race.

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Affirmative action

Meredith v. Jefferson County was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court in 2007 that rejected the notion that racial balancing of demographics in public schools was a compelling state interest. The court found the county's enrollment plan unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Background

Until 2000, Jefferson County Public Schools in Kentucky had been integrated by court order. After release from the order, the school system maintained a policy that promoted racial integration by allowing no school to have an enrollment of black students less than 15 percent or greater than 50 percent of its student population. Students were allowed a choice of schools, but since not every school could accommodate every applicant, enrollment choices were sometimes made on the basis of race.

The Supreme Court's decisions in Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger allowed for race-based classifications directed towards compelling government interests and narrowly tailored to those interests. In these cases, the Supreme Court had found that promoting diversity in the student body provided certain educational benefits that made it a compelling government interest. The court stipulated, however that such policies should be narrowly tailored and provide individualized consideration for the applicants.

Crystal Meredith and other parents sued the school system, claiming that the plan's use of racial classification violated the student's rights to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. The United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky found that the school system had a compelling interest in promoting student diversity, citing the Supreme Court's ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger. The court upheld the use of percentage guidelines for racial diversity, and found that the students whose transfers were rejected were not unduly harmed by the rejection. The plaintiffs appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, which affirmed the lower court's decision. The plaintiffs further appealed to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case.

Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1

See also: Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1

A similar case, Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1, was heard alongside Meredith v. Jefferson County. The Seattle School District implemented a series of tiebreakers to determine admissions when too many students applied to the same high school. Part of the consideration for the tiebreaker was the race of the student. The plaintiffs argued that the system violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Washington state law. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case on June 5, 2006.

On June 28, 2007, in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court declared the enrollment plan unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The majority found that the plan did not provide individualized consideration for students; instead, the plan separated students into two groups, black and other. The court found that the enrollment plan did not meet the standard for constitutional consideration of race. The court held that the plan was targeted towards demographic goals rather than educational interests. The majority opinion was delivered by Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy, and Samuel Alito.

Roberts wrote the following in the majority opinion:

"

"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."

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-Chief Justice John Roberts

Justice Stephen Breyer dissented, joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The dissent argued that the majority opinion ignored the context of the case and that, "it announces legal rules that will obstruct efforts by state and local governments to deal effectively with the growing resegregation of public schools, it threatens to substitute for present calm a disruptive round of race-related litigation, and it undermines Brown 's promise of integrated primary and secondary education that local communities have sought to make a reality."

External links

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Meredith v. Jefferson County - Ballotpedia

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Affirmative action Meredith v. Jefferson County was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court in 2007 that rejected the notion that racial balancing of demographics in public schools was a compelling state interest. The court found the county's enrollment plan unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

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Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District- 2007

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Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District- 2007

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Public school districts should not and can't use race to determine what school a person is assigned to, even to achieve racial diversity. The way to end racial descrimination is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.

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Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle

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The Supreme Court makes a divinity ruling on the use of race in the public school system in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle

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American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009

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American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009

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The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) was passed on February 17th, 2009 by President Barack Obama. This act was introduced in order to stimulate the economy and took measures to modernize our nation’s energy and communication infrastructure as well as enhance energy independence. This act provided approximately $100 billion to deliver emergency education funding to states and drive key school reforms to help recover from the Great Recession of 2008.

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The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) - which President Obama signed into law on February 17th, 2009 - was an unprecedented action to stimulate the economy. It included measures to modernize our nation's energy and communication infrastructure and enhance energy independence. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) provided DOE with $4.5 billion to modernize the electric power grid. Under the largest program, the Smart Grid Investment Grant (SGIG), DOE and the electricity industry jointly invested about $9.5 billion in 99 cost-shared projects involving more than 200 participating electric utilities and other organizations to modernize the electric grid, strengthen cybersecurity, improve interoperability, and collect an unprecedented level of data on smart grid operations and benefits. The Recovery Act allowed DOE to invest $600 million along with $900 million industry cost share in 32 Regional Smart Grid Demonstrations and Energy Storage Demonstration projects under the Smart Grid Demonstration Program (SGDP). The goal of SGDP was to demonstrate new and more cost-effective smart grid technologies, tools, techniques, and system configurations that significantly improve on the ones commonly used today. The Recovery Act also provided funding for more than 50 smart grid workforce development projects that helped prepare the next generation of workers in the utility and electrical manufacturing industries and six projects that strengthened the capabilities for long-term analysis and planning in the three interconnections serving the lower 48 states. Funding also allowed states to hire new staff and retrain existing employees to ensure they can quickly and effectively review proposed electricity projects, supported the development of interoperability standards, and allowed 47 states, Washington DC, and 43 cities to develop energy assurance plans for natural disasters.

From the beginning, the Recovery Act investment was intended to energize industry and help accelerate work being done so that investments would go farther and so faster progress could be made in transforming our aging infrastructure into a system that better supports American consumers and a vibrant, growing economy. Because of this unprecedented investment, the nation's grid today is more reliable, resilient, flexible, efficient and secure. A fact sheet that describes in more detail how the Recovery Act investment has allowed Americans to start experiencing the benefits of the future grid today is available HERE.

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2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

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The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) - which President Obama signed into law on February 17th, 2009 - was an unprecedented action to stimulate the economy. It included measures to modernize our nation's energy and communication infrastructure and enhance energy independence.

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Emma Gonzalez was a survivor in the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High school shooting. Seventeen students died. Since then, Emma Gonzalez has taken stands and fought for gun control. She has spoken at many rallies, being open and passionate about her opinions.

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Covid-19 has negatively affected students' grades and their mental health. 35% of parents are concerned about their children's mental health and student’s are becoming less likely to go to post-secondary school.