Education History

  • Separate but Equal

    Separate but Equal
    Plessy v. Ferguson decision. This decision means that the federal government officially recognizes segregation as legal. The southern states pass laws requiring racial segregation in public schools.
  • Technology

    Technology was introduced into the classrooms.
  • John Dewey

    Hands on learning is accepted
  • Women's Rights

    Women have the right to vote
  • SAT

    The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is first administered.
  • The Great Depression

    The Great Depression
    The Great Depression begins with the stock market crash. The U.S. economy is devastated which effects the public education funding resulting in school closings, teacher layoffs, and lower salaries.
  • Desegregation

    Desegregation
    Alvarez vs. the Board of Trustees of the Lemon Grove (California) School District becomes the first successful school desegregation court case in the United States
  • Unequal Pay

    Unequal Pay
    The NAACP brings a series of suits over unequal teachers' pay for Blacks and whites in southern states.
  • After WW1

    Bill of Rights gives thousands of working class men college scholarships for the first time in U.S. history.
  • Must be Abolished

    Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. The Supreme Court unanimously agrees that segregated schools are "inherently unequal" and must be abolished.
  • Little Rock Central High School

    Little Rock Central High School
    First high school to integrate
  • Bible

    Bible
    Bible is banned from school
  • Title lX passed

    Title lX passed
    Discrimination against girls end, whether it was sports or education.
  • Milliken v. Bradley

    Milliken v. Bradley. A Supreme Court made up of Richard Nixon's appointees rules that schools may not be desegregated across school districts. This effectively legally segregates students of color in inner-city districts from white students in wealthier white suburban districts.
  • The Refugee Act of 1980

    The Refugee Act of 1980 is signed into law by President Jimmy Carter. Building on the Immigration Act of 1965, it reforms immigration law to admit refugees for humanitarian reasons and results in the resettlement of more than three-million refugees in the United States including many children who bring special needs and issues to their classrooms.
  • Undocumented

    Proposition 187 passes in California, making it illegal for children of undocumented immigrants to attend public school.
  • Race Doesn't Matter

    Race Doesn't Matter
    The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that race cannot be a factor in assigning students to high schools.
  • Alabama

    Alabama becomes the first state "to require public schools to check the immigration status" of students.
  • No Child Left Behind

    No Child Left Behind
    President Barack Obama announces on February 9 that the the No Child Left Behind law were approved.
  • Protest against Trump

    Protest against Trump
    Many students march against Donald Trumps new rules and opinions about gun laws and people's gender.