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EDUCATION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The right to a free public education is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but its importance as a route to freedom cannot be underestimated. The concept of public education dates to the Puritan settlers and their belief that individuals had to know how to read the Bible. In Massachusetts, education was made compulsory in 1642.

Primary grade, Andersonville Ga., c. 1909.

At the end of the War for Independence, educated Americans began to see the need for a people who could read and write if the fragile new republic was going to endure. In the 19th century, many Northeastern and Midwestern states set up publicly-funded schools. Hardly a universal education system, these schools still represented a step in that direction and enrollment steadily expanded. Education became compulsory up to the age of 16 in the first half of the 20th century.

Sitting on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, Nettie Hunt explains to her daughter, Nickie, that in Brown v. Board of Education the court ruled segregation in public schools unconstitutional, c. May 1954.

The southern states barred slaves from learning to read and write. Even for whites, few public schools existed in the South until Reconstruction. Although segregated, as were many Northern public schools, these schools provided an educational system for both blacks and whites for the first time. Legal segre- gation would not be overturned until 1954, when the Supreme Court decided that “separate but equal was inherently unequal.”

 

Outside Gov. George Pataki’s office in New York City, staff and students from the Borough of Manhattan Community College /CUNY, protest budget cuts proposed by the Governor, Oct. 18, 1995.

Publicly funded higher education had its roots in the 19th century. Congress passed the Morrill Land Grant Act in 1862, which gave states land to finance the creation of agricultural and technical colleges, such as Cornell University’s College of Agriculture. New York City became a pioneer in 1847 with the creation of the locally funded Free Academy (later renamed City College), which became the flagship of the 23 colleges of The City University of New York. Today they carry on the mission to provide higher education to all New Yorkers. .

Substantial inequalities in education remain throughout the United States, but the noble goal that all Americans should have the right to an education endures.