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Massachusetts Law of 1647
One of the first events that led to the creation of schools was the Massachusetts Law of 1647 also known as the Old Deluder Satan Act. It ordered that every town of fifty families should have an elementary school and every 100 families should have a Latin school. They wanted to ensure that all children would learn how to read and be able to understand the teachings of the bible. -
Common School Movement
The purpose behind this case was so that the government had a greater role in the schooling of all children. It also advocated for local property taxes financing public schools. Horace Mann, known as "The Father of the Common School" led the Common School Movement. He wanted every child to attend public schools at no cost and wanted teachers to be well-trained. -
Plessy v Ferguson
In 1892, Homer Plessy, an African American refused to sit in a car for Black people. Plessy felt that his constitutional rights were violated so he brought this argument to the court but the Supreme Court ruled that state-mandated segregation did not violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The "separate but equal" doctrine impacted education for African Americans because they were not getting the same quality and resources compared to the white. -
Brown v the Board of Education, Topeka
In 1951, Linda Brown, daughter of Oliver Brown, was denied admission into a white elementary school. So he challenged Kansas's school segregation laws in the Supreme Court. The NAACP and Thurgood Marshall took up the case and the court declared that racial segregation in public schools did violate the Fourteenth Amendment, overturning the "sperate but equal". This impacted African Americans because it gave them an equal opportunity to go to any school of their choice. -
Green v County School Board
This case found that "freedom of choice" plans, which allowed students to choose the public school they attended, did not adequately address the issue of integrating public schools. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a “freedom-of-choice” provision in a Virginia school board’s desegregation plan was unacceptable because there were available alternatives that promised a quicker and more-effective conversion to a school system that was not racially segregated. -
Title IX
Before the Title IX was passed few opportunities existed for female athletes. There were no athletic scholarships for them and they held no championships for women's teams. As a result of this, in 1972 there just 30,000 women participating in NCAA sports, as opposed to 170,000 men. Women were affected by this event until Title IX was passed and changed those imbalances. It prohibited any harassment towards women. They also had the same rights as men and equal access to join any sport. -
Milliken v Bradley
The Milliken v. Bradley case addressed a plan for desegregation of schools and busing in Detroit and its suburbs. After a file against Governor Milliken for public officials intentionally segregating Detroit schools, the Supreme Court ruled that schools may not segregate students of color in inner-city districts from white students in wealthier suburban districts. This decision greatly impacted the city's population and changed the course of school desegregation in the United States. -
Education of all Handicapped Children Act
Before, EHA many children were denied access to education and opportunities to learn. Some U.S schools educated only one in five children with disabilities. Many states also had laws that excluded certain students with disabilities like children who were deaf, blind or had an intellectual disability. This affected all children with disabilities between ages 3 and 21. But after the law was passed in 1975, all individuals with disabilities got the right to receive free appropriate education. -
Plyler v Doe
The Plyler v Doe was a United States Supreme Court case regarding state-provided funding for local school districts. They were unsure whether it was a violation of the Constitution to withhold state funding from school districts that educated children living in the country without legal permission. This impacted children from Mexico/immigrants because after 5 years of legal action, all children, regardless of their immigration status, had the right to free public education. -
Abbott v Burke
This case is recognized as the most important education legal action for poor and minority school children since Brown v Board of Education. In 1981, the Education Law Center argued that the state's method of funding education was unconstitutional because it caused significant inequality spending between the poor and the wealthy school districts. Which affected the poor school districts because they were unable to meet the educational needs of their students.