Public Education: America's Historical Legal Transformation

The history of public education in the United States is complex and multifaceted, with various milestones marking its evolution.

The first public schools in the American colonies were established by religious groups like the Puritans in Massachusetts during the 17th century, with the aim of providing religious and moral instruction. Over time, the public school system expanded, and by the mid-19th century, schools in New England had taken on many educational tasks traditionally handled by parents.

A significant development was the passage of the Common School Act in 1837, which established free public schools in Massachusetts, open to all children regardless of social or economic status. This marked a shift towards a modern public education system.

Another milestone was the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, which declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional, paving the way for greater equality and inclusion.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), passed in 1975, guaranteed a free and appropriate education for students with disabilities, ensuring their rights and providing special education services.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 introduced new accountability measures, with annual standardised tests used to evaluate schools and teachers. However, this act was controversial and was replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, giving states more control over education policy.

The first public schools

The Puritans' aim was for children to be able to read and interpret the Bible for themselves without the need for clergy interpretation. The Puritans set up schools almost immediately after arriving in America in 1630, and children who did not attend school were taught at home. As a result, Americans were the most literate people in the world.

In 1642, the Massachusetts Bay Colony made education compulsory, and other New England colonies followed this example. In the 18th century, "common schools" were established, where students of all ages were taught by one teacher in one room. These schools were publicly supplied at the local level, but students' families were charged tuition.

The larger towns in New England opened grammar schools, the forerunner of the modern high school. The most famous was the Boston Latin School, which is still in operation as a public high school.

By the mid-19th century, the role of the schools in New England had expanded to such an extent that they took over many of the educational tasks traditionally handled by parents.

The Common School Act

While the Act was intended to allow for freedom of choice in various communities, it gave many racial separatists the ammunition they needed to enforce racial segregation. In various areas, white community members used the Act as a way to force Black students into separate institutions.

The Act was one of many policies that left Black students disadvantaged throughout Canadian school systems.

Brown v. Board of Education

In 1951, a class-action lawsuit was filed against the Board of Education of the City of Topeka, Kansas, in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. The plaintiffs were thirteen Topeka parents on behalf of their 20 children. The suit called for the school district to reverse its policy of racial segregation. The Topeka Board of Education operated separate elementary schools due to a law that permitted districts to maintain separate elementary school facilities for black and white students in 12 communities with populations over 15,000. The plaintiffs had been recruited by the leadership of the Topeka NAACP.

The case "Oliver Brown et al. v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas" was named after Oliver Brown as a legal strategy to have a man at the head of the roster. The lawyers, and the National Chapter of the NAACP, also felt that having Mr. Brown at the head of the roster would be better received by the U.S. Supreme Court justices.

The District Court ruled in favor of the Board of Education, citing the U.S. Supreme Court precedent set in Plessy v. Ferguson. Judge Walter Huxman wrote the opinion for the three-judge District Court panel, including nine "findings of fact," based on the evidence presented at trial. Although finding number eight stated that segregation in public education has a detrimental effect on negro children, the court denied relief on the ground that the negro and white schools in Topeka were substantially equal with respect to buildings, transportation, curricula, and educational qualifications of teachers.

The case of Brown v. Board of Education as heard before the Supreme Court combined five cases: Brown itself, Briggs v. Elliott (filed in South Carolina), Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County (filed in Virginia), Gebhart v. Belton (filed in Delaware), and Bolling v. Sharpe (filed in Washington, D.C.) All were NAACP-sponsored cases.

In May 1954, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous 9–0 decision in favor of the Browns. The Court ruled that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal," and therefore laws that impose them violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Court's decision consists of a single opinion written by chief justice Earl Warren, which all the justices joined.

The Court's opinion began by discussing whether the Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in 1868, was meant to abolish segregation in public education. The Court said that it had been unable to reach a conclusion on the question, even after hearing a second round of oral arguments from the parties' lawyers specifically on the historical sources. The Court said the question was complicated by the major social and governmental changes that had taken place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It observed that public schools had been uncommon in the American South in the late 1860s. At that time, Southern white children whose families could afford schooling usually attended private schools, while the education of Southern black children was "almost nonexistent", to the point that in some Southern states the education of black people was forbidden by law. The Court contrasted this with the situation in 1954: "Today, education is perhaps the most important function of our local and state governments."

The Court concluded that, in making its ruling, it would have to "consider public education in light of its full development and its present place in American life throughout the Nation." During the segregation era, it was common for black schools to have fewer resources and poorer facilities than white schools despite the equality required by the "separate but equal" doctrine. The Brown Court did not address this issue, however, probably because some of the school districts involved in the case had improved their black schools in order to "equalize" them with the quality of the white schools. This prevented the Court from finding a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause in "measurable inequalities" between all white and black schools and forced the Court to look to the effects of segregation itself.

The Court therefore framed the case around the more general question of whether the principle of "separate but equal" was constitutional when applied to public education. In answer, the Court held that it did. The Court ruled that state-mandated segregation, even if implemented in schools of otherwise equal quality, is inherently unequal because of its psychological impact upon the segregated children. To separate [black children] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely to ever be undone. The Court supported this conclusion with citations—in a footnote, not the main text of the opinion—to several psychological studies concluding that segregating black children made them feel inferior and interfered with their learning.

The Court then concluded its relatively short opinion by declaring that segregated public education was inherently unequal, violated the Equal Protection Clause, and therefore was unconstitutional: "We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment."

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is the nation's special education law. It was first passed in 1975 as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act and was last updated in 2004.

IDEA gives rights and protections to children with disabilities, from birth through high school graduation or until they turn 21, whichever comes first. It also gives parents specific rights and protections, known as procedural safeguards.

The law places two big responsibilities on states and their public schools. Firstly, school districts must provide a free appropriate public education (FAPE) to children with disabilities. These children must learn alongside their peers as much as possible, in what is known as the least restrictive environment, or LRE. Schools must find and evaluate students who may have disabilities, at no cost to families. This is known as Child Find. If a child has a qualifying disability, schools must offer special education and related services (like speech therapy and counselling) to meet the child's unique needs. These are provided through an Individualized Education Program (IEP).

Secondly, schools must give parents a voice in their child's education. At every point in the process, IDEA gives parents specific rights and protections. For example, a school must get consent from parents before providing services to children.

The reach of IDEA goes beyond traditional public schools. It includes public magnet and charter schools, and it provides early intervention services to infants and toddlers up to age three. Finally, IDEA may impact some students in private schools.

No Child Left Behind Act

The No Child Left Behind Act was a controversial piece of legislation that was passed in 2001 and signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2002. The act was an update to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 and was designed to increase school accountability for student educational outcomes and reduce disparities between lower-performing and higher-performing students and districts.

Provisions of the Act

Under the No Child Left Behind Act, schools were required to administer a standardised test annually to students in select grade levels. Schools that failed to meet yearly targets for two years in a row were labelled as "In Need of Improvement" and had to develop a two-year improvement plan. If a school missed its targets for a third consecutive year, it was required to offer free tutoring and other supplemental education services to students who were struggling. A school that missed its targets for a fourth consecutive year was labelled as requiring "corrective action", which could involve wholesale replacement of staff, the introduction of a new curriculum, or an extension of the amount of time students spent in class. A fifth year of failure would result in plans to restructure the school entirely.

The act also required states to provide "highly qualified" teachers to all students, although each state was allowed to set its own standards for what constituted "highly qualified". The act also required schools to let military recruiters have access to students' contact information, which led to some political resistance and student-led efforts to force school districts to create an "opt-in" policy.

Effects of the Act

The act was controversial and had both positive and negative effects. Supporters of the act claim that it increased accountability and helped teachers and schools realise the significance of the educational system. Opponents, however, say that the punishments only hurt schools and did not contribute to the improvement of student education. The act also led to an increased focus on standardised testing, which some critics argue encouraged teachers to "teach to the test" and focus only on what students were tested on, rather than achieving in-depth understanding of the overall curriculum.

Criticisms of the Act

Criticisms of the act included the claim that it reduced effective instruction and student learning by causing states to lower achievement goals. It was also criticised for its narrow definition of research and for not requiring any programs for gifted, talented, and other high-performing students. Federal funding of gifted education decreased by a third over the law's first five years, and there was only one program that helped improve the gifted.

Legacy of the Act

By 2015, bipartisan criticism had increased so much that a bipartisan Congress stripped away the national features of the No Child Left Behind Act. Its replacement, the Every Student Succeeds Act, turned the remnants over to the states.

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