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Common Schools
Created by the help of Horace Mann, common schools were a publicly funded/supported school that was open to all students. Students learning together regardless of race, class or gender to create a sense of community. This public school system was created in the hope to reduce poverty and social class distinctions. This reflects what our public schools are today. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
Homer Plessy appealed his conviction after being sentenced to jail for riding in a "white" railroad car. The court ruled in favor of the judge, John Howard Ferguson, allowing local custom and tradition to win. The "separate but equal" doctrine was upheld. This event created a legal justification of racial segregation for more than 50 years. Separate facilities (including schools) were constitutional as long as they were "equal". -
World War I
The war and Great Depression created an increase in school attendance. Intelligence exams were created during the war to classify the millions of recruits based on their general intellectual level. These tests remain the basis of today's modern standardized achievement test. More federal money was given to schools. They were made bigger to house more students (like our public schools today) than the one-room school houses. -
Brown v. Board of Education
This was the start of unsegregated schools. There was a suit filed to enroll African American students into public schools that only serviced white children. They argued that the segregated schools were not equal and could not be made equal. The supreme court agreed that even if the material features were "equal", the education was not. The court recognized that education is the most important state and local government function. -
Sputnik
American education is still affected today from the Soviet's launch of the Sputnik satellite. America blamed the public education system for their embarrassment of not being the first country in space. It showed that U.S. children are behind other nations' achievement level in basic subjects and they were motivated to change that. A more demanding curriculum was developed that was devoted to math, science and reasoning skills.
