"The Story of Schools" 1950-1980

During the 1950s through the 1980s there was a tremendous struggle for equal opportunity among the sexes, races, and people with disabilities. In the 1950s there was no physical education for women and they were not accepted into prestigious colleges, 72 percent of disabled children were not enrolled in school, the average time for Mexican American children to be enrolled in school was a mere 5.7 years, and African Americans were segregated by law. Luckily activists, parents, and students crusaded to get all students in school and demanded equality. One of the places that led such crusades was Topeka, Kansas, were the infamous Brown vs. the Board of Education came to be. The N.A.A.C.P was gathering evidence to prove that schools were never equal, as segregation was legal as long as separate facilities were equal. Even in schools like the high school in Topeka where they integrated, there were still separate activities like sport teams and proms. Luckily at the schools that were still segregated, all-Black schools commonly had African American teachers who were highly qualified. Even so, African American students got the discarded books from the white schools and they were always outdated. The N.A.A.C.P. advised black parents to enroll their students in the white schools, and each of them were turned away, thus the Brown vs. the Board of Education case, in which sixty years of legal segregation finally ceased to be. Although a lot of positive outcomes stemmed from this, many schools struggled with integration, riots gathered against integration, and thousands of African American teachers were kicked out and principals were demoted. This was really unfortunate, especially because these teachers were so highly qualified.

Another important contributor to the improvement of schools and equity during this time was President Lyndon Johnson. He said that and equal chance at education meant and equal chance at life, and so true he was. Students across different races, social classes, and sexes benefited from his presidency. He helped with such things as Head Start and low cost college loans, and most importantly he helped start to ban discrimination in places like public school. He signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in which states and school districts could lose federal funding if they refused to de-segregate. He seemed to realize that unfortunately it would take the threat of money to really make people listen and change their discriminatory behaviors. He also signed the Elementary and Secondary Act that helped aid children who needed help.

Something the video brought up about the 1960s that is hard to listen to and not get angry over is the treatment of Mexican Americans. In 1968 approximately 75 percent of Mexican Americans had dropped out of school by eighth grade. They were forbidden to speak Spanish, textbooks were not written for Mexican Americans, and schools really pushed to Americanize them. Some Mexican Americans spoke out, wanting teachers to stop calling them names, and desiring an education that respected their lives as Mexican Americans. At one point 500 students stayed out of school on strike, and this eventually led to Mexican Americans taking up positions on the school board, with one even becoming the school board president, their culture and history were included in schools, Spanish was allowed, teachers were Spanish, among other things.

As far as the unfair treatment of women, they were seen as the lesser sex, discouraged from taking higher-level classes, and playing sports. Eventually, after such women as Dorothy Raffel spoke up about wanting to play basketball, unbiased textbooks came to be, 50 percent of women were earning their masters and 40 percent were enrolled in athletics.

By 1976, schools started to extend equality for students with disabilities, making them more accessible and welcoming. This time in history marked so many positive changes as the civil rights era. More were still to come, as segregation was still entrenched in certain places, but a lot had been accomplished in the 1950s through the 1980s.