The document provides a timeline of important people, places, and events in American education history from 1750 to 2014. It summarizes key developments including Anthony Benezet opening the first public school for girls in 1750, Thomas Jefferson advocating for public education in 1817, the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court case establishing "separate but equal" in 1896, Brown v. Board of Education overturning this decision in 1954, and Title IX protecting transgender students' rights in 2014. The timeline highlights milestones that shaped education policy around issues like diversity, church-state separation, desegregation, and civil rights.

1. PEOPLE, PLACES, & EVENTS:
AN AMERICAN EDUCATION
TIMELINE
Mary Carla Patton
Angelo State University

2. 1750 1817 1881 1896 1925
Anthony Benezet
1750
Thomas
Jefferson
1817
.
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. Washington
1881
Plessy v. Ferguson
1896 The Scopes Trial
1925

3. 1954 1963 1972 2002 2014
Brown v. Board
of Education
1954
Abington School Discrict v.
Schempp
1963
Title IX
1972
No Child Left
Behind
2002
Tital IX Protects
Trans Students
2014
.
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).

4. 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.jpg
Booker 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.jpg
Carpenter, 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=3183
Digital 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.html
No child left behind [Electronic image]. Retrieved from
http://tfs.k12.nj.us/cms/lib07/NJ01000189/Centricity/Domain/65/KCA6ZQLQUCAT2FXUVCAIM0
AD0CAR11NGTCAOVAI
Q5CA8PKY3FCATDD225CAZ88NBWCAG75VEXCAJ7YWOHCAYP1VL9CADW3AK4CAF4FLG5
CAYHJ2XLCAVBDGEICAWIN4N3CA0V3ZPFCA12E8SECAG5AMD9.jpg
References

5. References
Oliver 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.html
Thomas 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.jpg
United 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