Friday, January 29, 2010

Background Information on Public Schools


Public education, which first started as the best and only form of education, has been going on a downwards slope for a while now. Public schools were first considered high education schools where there was a good education available. Public schools began to get a bad name when schools in the south began to have a lower education and less funding due the fact a lot of the population were slaves. When Thomas Jefferson was elected into office he encouraged and to action to expand public education to provide some form of schooling and learning for all children. When public education began to spread religion was no longer allowed to be taught. This became a very big law that is still used today because it created, the separation of church in state. Due to the fact that public education was funded by the state this allowed for no religion taught in public schools. This action lead to many Americans turning to a public education and a better education and better paid teachers. As it became a law for all children to be in attendance at school the issue of segregation grew, but did not become a major issue until after the civil war.
As the civil war ended and the civil rights movement grew segregation in schools became a national issue. Blacks were being denied a right to a proper education. Black public schools were funded very low and had low quality teachers. With little funding for black schools the materials necessary were not available to them. This caused for generations of blacks with a poor education. With education being highly valued in America and with it being considered a key factor for success it gave blacks a great disadvantage. At the time of the civil rights movement blacks were forced into low income parts of the city, forcing kids to go to low income schools. Those low income schools cause low education for the youth. All these factors are still shown today through the problem that there is with public education still.
I believe that the process of segregation is a main factor for the reason why public education is still an issue. Through low income areas creates lower education and this problem needs to be fixed with better funding. Better funding will and can lead to better materials which leads to a better basis of education and from this a more general and better knowledge among all people of social and racial classes will occur. If there is a better knowledge among people America will be a better functioning society, which will help the government and America as a whole.
Newman, Jason. "public education." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 29 Jan. 2010. .
"Thomas Jefferson." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 29 Jan. 2010. .

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