PEOPLE, PLACES, & EVENTS:

AN AMERICAN EDUCATION TIMELINE

Mary Carla Patton

Angelo State University

1750 1817 1881 1896 1925

Anthony Benezet1750

Thomas Jefferson

1817

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Anthony Benezet, ardent Quaker abolitionist, began his teaching career in Pennsylvania. In 1750, he held evening classes in his home, teaching black children and the poor. In 1754, Benezet opened the first public school for girls in America. During this time, he also devised a way to educate a deaf and dumb girl. Benezet embodied education for all, setting the example for diversity in education. (The Abolitionist Project, 2009; Patton, 2015).

Thomas Jefferson considered education to be the first defense against an overbearing and overreaching government. Recognizing a correlation between education and rights of citizenship, Jefferson strongly advocated education for all. Three examples of educational legislation introduced by Jefferson to the Virginia State Legislature were A Bill for Establishing a Public Library, A Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge, and A Bill for Establishing a System of Public Education (Carpenter, 2013; Patton, 2015).

Born a slave in 1856, most think Booker T. Washington changed education for blacks in America by founding the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Designed to educate blacks in industrial trades, Washington was instrumental in breaking the crippling cycle of sharecropping and accumulated debt. Washington may be considered the founding father of trade schools, leading to the present time of technological institutes. In some respects, that is all true. However, Washington forever changed education for blacks by mastering the political art form of accommodation; for example, minimizing political rights for blacks and emphasizing vocational education for blacks. Washington knew political rights were a natural progression from the education of blacks (Southern Culture, 2004; Digital History, 2014).

In the late 19th century, many southern states began passing “separate but equal” laws, effectively legalizing segregation. When Louisiana passed this legislation in 1890, black activists in New Orleans arranged for Homer Adolphus Plessy to be arrested for refusing to move to a segregated train car, thus implementing a legal challenge to the “separate but equal” law. Presenting before the United States Supreme Court in 1896, the Court ruled “that as long as racially separate facilities were equal they did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees of equal protection of the law” Justice John Marshall Harlan dissenting. Thus, the doctrine of “separate but equal” was now the law of the land (History Matters, n.d.).

In 1925, Tennessee teacher John Scopes was placed on trial for teaching the theory of evolution, a direct violation of Tennessee law. William Jennings Bryan prosecuted the case; Clarence Darrow represented Scopes. A test case for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Scopes ultimately pled guilty and was fined $100. The United States Supreme Court struck down the Tennessee law in 1967, determining it violated the Constitution by establishment of religion. Historically, the conclusions from the trial are that the state shall not inhibit the freedom of academic (scientific) inquiry, and society should respect academic freedom (Digital History, 2012).

Booker T. Washington1881

Plessy v. Ferguson1896 The Scopes Trial

1925

1954 1963 1972 2002 2014

Brown v. Board of Education

1954

Abington School Discrict v. Schempp

1963Title IX1972

No Child Left Behind2002

Tital IX Protects Trans Students

2014

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Activist Reverend Oliver Brown brought suit against the Topeka, Kansas, board of education on behalf of his daughter, Linda. Linda, a black elementary school student, had been denied admittance to her local white-only school, which was closer to home than her segregated all-black school. In Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the United States Supreme Court struck down the “separate but equal” doctrine of education, thus literally forever changing the face of American public education (PBS.org, n.d.; Patton, 2015).

The United States Supreme Court ruled that Pennsylvania law requiring “an official reading at the beginning of each school day of Bible passages” violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. The Court decided constituted the Pennsylvania law created an impermissible religious exercise by government, thus violating separation of church and state doctrine (First Amendment Center, 2015).

Loosely, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prevents discrimination against females and their sports programs by local school districts. However, the broader and more far-reaching implications of Title IX forces compliance by local districts in order to receive federal funding for public schools. Thus, local school districts, always cash-strapped, can be controlled by the federal government (U.S. Department of Justice, n.d.). Therefore, he, who has the gold, rules.

No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2002, was a bipartisan effort to reverse an ever declining American education system, no longer competitive in a global market. Complex in nature, NCLB was designed to improve student outcomes nationally with results produced by high-stakes testing. Under Title I of the U.S. Department of Education (1965 federal educational funding for underprivileged children), state compliance is voluntary; however, to receive federal funding, states must comply (Klein, 2015).

The Department of Education issues a memo ensuring that transgender students are protected under Title IX. Accordingly, “Title IX’s sex discrimination prohibition extends to claims of discrimination based on gender identity or failure to conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity or femininity and OCR accepts such complaints for investigation” (GLSEN, 2014).

American Experience (n.d.). People & events: Brown v. Board of Education (1954). PBS.org. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/peopleevents/e_brown.html Anthony Benezet [Electronic image]. Retrieved from http://www.penncharter.com/uploaded/Development/Anthony_Benezet_cropped_lo.jpgBooker T. Washington [Electronic image]. Retrieved from Booker T. Washington [Electronic image]. Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/Booker_T_Washington_portrait.jpgCarpenter, J. (2013). Thomas Jefferson and the ideology of democratic schooling. Democracy & Education, 21(2), 1- 11.Digital History (2014). Booker T. Washington and the politics of accommodation. Retrieved from http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&psid=3183Digital History (2014). The Scopes trial. Retrieved from

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook_print.cfm?smtid=2&psid=3390 Evolution [Electronic image]. Retrieved from http://all-len-all.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/scopes-trial-image- 2.jpg First Amendment Center. Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963). Retrieved from http://www.firstamendmentschools.org/freedoms/case.aspx?id=1238 GLSEN, (2015.) U.S. Department of Education issues guidance clarifying Title IX protections for transgender students. Retrieved from http://www.glsen.org/article/dept-ed-title-ix-protects-trans-students History Matters (n.d.). Separate but Equal: The Plessy v. Ferguson case. Retrieved from http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5485/ Klein, A. (2015). No child left behind: An overview. Education Week, 34(27). Retrieved from

http://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/no-child-left-behind-overview-definition-summary.htmlNo child left behind [Electronic image]. Retrieved from http://tfs.k12.nj.us/cms/lib07/NJ01000189/Centricity/Domain/65/KCA6ZQLQUCAT2FXUVCAIM0 AD0CAR11NGTCAOVAIQ5CA8PKY3FCATDD225CAZ88NBWCAG75VEXCAJ7YWOHCAYP1VL9CADW3AK4CAF4FLG5 CAYHJ2XLCAVBDGEICAWIN4N3CA0V3ZPFCA12E8SECAG5AMD9.jpg

References

ReferencesOliver Brown and Linda Brown [Electronic image]. Retrieved from http://image.slidesharecdn.com/conflictsofsegregation2-090402115459-phpapp02/95/conflicts-of- segregation-2-12-728.jpg?cb=1238673354 Patton, M. (2015). Influential people in education 1701 – present. Unpublished manuscript. Angelo State University.The Abolitionist Project (2009). Anthony Benezet (1713-1784): The teacher. E2BN. Retrieved from http://abolition.e2bn.org/people_27.htmlThomas Jefferson [Electronic image]. Retrieved from http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5187dff06bb3f7c52300000e/apple-rejects-a-thomas-jefferson- app-from-the-app-store.jpg Title IX [Electronic image]. Retrieved from http://www.govst.edu/uploadedImages/About/Offices_and_Departments/Financial_Aid/FA_Inside_Pa ges/titleIX.png?n=3265 Transgender symbol [Electronic image]. Retrieved from http://media.graytvinc.com/images/TRANSGENDER+SCHOOLS+656X369.jpgUnited States Department of Justice. Overview of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. A§ 1681 Et. Seq. Retrieved from http://www.justice.gov/crt/overview-title-ix-education-amendments-1972-20-usc- 1681-et-seq United States Supreme Court Justices, 1896 [Electronic image]. Retrieved from https://www.awesomestories.com/images/user/ea716791ee75c7800e85a69b37dcc067.jpg United States Supreme Court Justices, 1963 [Electronic image]. Retrieved from http://www.scrollpublishing.com/store/media/Warren-Court.jpg