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Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
The General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony decrees that every town of fifty families should have an elementary school and that every town of 100 families should have a Latin school. The goal is to ensure that Puritan children learn to read the Bible and receive basic information about their Calvinist religion. -
Free Public Education
Pennsylvania state constitution calls for free public education but only for poor children. It is expected that rich people will pay for their children's schooling. -
First Public High School
First public high school in the U.S., Boston English, opens. -
Massachusetts Reform School
Massachusetts Reform School at Westboro opens, where children who have refused to attend public schools are sent. This begins a long tradition of "reform schools," which combine the education and juvenile justice systems. -
The war against Mexico
The war against Mexico ends with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which gives the United States almost half of what was then Mexico. One hundred fifty years later, in 1998, California breaks that treaty, by passing Proposition 227, which would make it illegal for teachers to speak Spanish in public schools. -
Illegal for Native Americans
Congress makes it illegal for Native Americans to be taught in their native languages. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
Basically how the term "separate but equal" was created. A man purchased a ticket on a train and sat in seat but the conductor told him because he was not white he could not sit there. Plessy, was of mixed race and believed he could sit there but was forcibly removed and sent to jail. -
Chinese immigrants
The U.S. Supreme Court requires California to extend public education to the children of Chinese immigrants. -
Brown v. Board of Education
This was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. As a result, de jure racial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. -
Integration of Little Rock, Arkansas
A federal court orders integration of Little Rock, Arkansas public schools. Governor Orval Faubus sends his National Guard to physically prevent nine African American students from enrolling at all-white Central High School. Reluctantly, President Eisenhower sends federal troops to enforce the court order not because he supports desegregation, but because he can't let a state governor use military power to defy the U.S. federal government. -
Title IX
This was a federal civil rights law in the United States of America that was passed as part of the Education Amendments of 1972 which by law says "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." -
Education of all Handicapped Children Act
This act was enacted by the United States Congress in 1975. This act required all public schools accepting federal funds to provide equal access to education and one free meal a day for children with physical and mental disabilities. -
Plyler v. Doe
was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States struck down both a state statute denying funding for education to undocumented children. The court majority found that the Texas law was "directed against children, and impose[d] its discriminatory burden on the basis of a legal characteristic over which children can have little control"—namely, the fact of their having been brought illegally into the United States by their parents. -
California again!
California again! This time a multi-millionaire named Ron Unz manages to put a measure on the June 1998 ballot outlawing bilingual education in California.
