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the Old Deluder Satan Act
This law was one of three legislative acts passed in massachussets that helped develop some of the first schools available for citizens to attend. The law required that any town with a population of 50 famillies to hire and maintain a teacher to educate them. Religion was the main driving factor in this push for education, as many town leaders believed that all people should be able to read the bible as well as understand the laws of the land that they live in. -
The English High School of Boston
This is one of the first public high schools to be opened in America. Before the opening of this school, the Boston education system consisted of mostly scattered grammer schools throughout the town. Most children at the time stopped attending to their education around the age of 10. Upon opening this school, the first class to attend consisted of 101 boys. It was not until the 1970s that girls were allowed to attend. -
Massachusetts Passes First Compulsory Education Law
Massachusetts in 1852 was the first state to pass a compulsory education law. This made parents obligated to send their children to certain schools, failure to do so would result in fines given to the parents. If parents refused to send their children to school, the state held the power to take children away from their families and put them in governement chosen apprenticeship programs if the parents were deemed "unfit to have the children educated properly". -
Plessy v. Ferguson
This was a landmark Supreme Court decision that stated segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrice were in fact constitutional. The decision created the legal distinction between white and black people was constitutional, allowing for Jim Crow laws and seperate public facilities based on race to become commonplace throughout the United States through the next half century. -
Brown v. the Board of Education, Topeka
This landmark legislation denied that "seperate but equal" was constitutional. Justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, forcing many schools to integrate their seperate systems to include both students of color and white students to learn in the same public school. The main arguement in the ruling was that segregation in public education violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. -
Engel v. Vitale
This decision effectively ruled that having students recite prayers in public schools was a violation of the First Amendment. Allowing for further developement of religious freedoms in America, and reinforced the seperation of church and state. Students in public schools in New York were read a board approved prayer and required students by in attendance. -
Green v. County School Board
While Brown v. Board of Education called for the removal of segregation in public education, many schools avoided full integreation by forcing students to go to the schools closest to their homes. This was deemed as de facto degregation, and Green v. County School Board ruled for a "freedom of choice" plan that allowed parents to choose which school they had their children attend. -
Pennsylvania Association of Retarded Children v. Commonwealth
PARC sued the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania over a law that allowed public schools the ability to refuse free education to children who had reached the age of 8 but did not meet the mental capacity expected of a 5 year old. Students who had difficulty integrating into classrooms were denied their free education by the schools they attended. The ruling decided that the law allowing refusal of free education to all students aged 6-21 was unconstitutional. -
Title IX
Protects students from discrimination based on sex in the educational system. Broadened the scoop of learning opportunities for girls in public schools and allowed for a greater introduction of girls sports programs to equal the opportunites given to both boys and girls. Allows both boys and girls in school equal access to school programs and education. -
Lau v. Nichols
With large amount of Chinese families immigrating to California, many Chinese parents found that their children were not being provided an equal education. These families filed a law suit that eventually was risen to the US Supreme Court. Lau v. Nichols effectively ruled that schools must provide additional and equal resources to students coming from non-english speaking families. Helping further to develop equality for English Language Learning Students. -
Education of All Handicapped Children Act
Signed by President Gerald Ford, this act guarantees a free and appropriate education (FAPE) to each student with a disability in every state across the country. All states receiving federal funding were forced to create a policy and program that assured all handicapped students the right to a free and appropriate education. -
Plyler v. Doe
Texas passed legislation that allowed for school districts to deny enrollment of undocumented, non-citizen children. Effectively forcing families of these children pay tuition in order for thier children to receive an education. 4 undocumented families filed a suit and the United states District Court ruled that the Texas law violated the Equal Protection Clause.