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Márcio Padilha
Fall/2006
Historical 2
Throughout the historical process, the American educational experience has been
influenced by a variety of factors which progressively developed from old Dame School
The 1647 Old Deluder Satan Act, reflecting the era’s status quo, strengthened
preexisting laws and required every Massachusetts town of 50 families or more families
to pay for a teacher to teach the children reading and writing so they read the Bible and
thwart Satan, who would assuredly try to keep people from understanding the scriptures.
Although this was a totally non metaphysical and polarized approach, reasoning such as
this was pivotal for launching the formalization of the educational process in America.
Eventually, Town Schools were formed, later evolving into District Schools, a
New England type of school created in light of townships being divided in districts, each
having its own school, its own schoolmaster and funded by the town treasury. In light of
the District School, the need for an administrative body came into existence in the form
of School District, which, in turn, eventually created the curriculum and a hierarchical
chain of command: the Superintend of Schools, the Local Board of Education, the State
Next the 1862 Federal US Legislation referred to as the Morris Act granted each
state federal land to establish colleges for the study of agriculture and mechanical arts
whereas the 1874 Kalamazoo case, a US Supreme Court Case further formalized the
schooling in the United States by uphold the right of states to tax citizens to create public
high schools. Subsequent to that, Plessy v. Ferguson, a 1896 Supreme Court decision,
accommodations for African Americans, which was later reinforce by the 1959 Brown v.
Board of Education of Topeka Decision which made racial segregation in public schools
As schooling in the United States took the structure it now possesses, the need for
funding became clearer. In light of that, the US Federal government developed the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), its single largest investment in
elementary and secondary education, which includes Title I, a section of the 1965 ESEA
which delivers funds for local districts and school for the education of low-income and
low-achieving students. Furthermore, there is Head Start, which also started in mid-
1960s and provides additional educational services to young children suffering the effects
of poverty.
In its most current reauthorization, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
is referred to as No Child Left Behind, which has added many more requirements for
states and school districts as to increase accountability of results for the grant money.