Graphic banner reading HISTORY OF US EDUCATION over sepia and blue historical school scenes

Resource Spotlight: History of US Education

As August kicks off TK-12 students, teachers, and school administrators in California returning for a new school year, it is an important time to reflect on the privilege that is education. While this statement may be a lecture to the lecturers, teaching students about education as something that has historically been a battleground, and not a given, can easily fall through the cracks. As many students–some of them begrudgingly–return, these resources can aid in teaching students the history and appreciation of the fight for equal education. 

NPR Podcast:

  • "The First Department of Education"
    • This NPR episode asks, "Whose job is it to educate Americans?" With guest speakers Professor Michael Steudeman, Professor Jonathan Zimmerman, and Professor Christopher Span, the episode details the first Department of Education and the story of its birth, death, and lasting legacy.

CHSSP Lesson Plans:

  • "Student Activism in the 1960s" 
    • The "Student Activism" resource analyzes student-led activism during the 1960s civil rights movement. These lessons include information on SNCC freedom schools, the Free Speech Movement, and the Third World Liberation Front. 
  • "Schools Over Time"
    • This first-grade resource explores continuity and change through the topic of schooling. This lesson also provides sources and directions on how to analyze images as primary sources.
  • "Separate is Never Equal: Before Linda Brown, there was Sylvia Mendez"
    • This fourth-grade lesson plan focuses on the case of Mendez v. Westminster (1947), the legal precedent to Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954). 
  • "Reconstruction" 
    • This eighth-grade resource provides information on Reconstruction. The source aids students in learning about students and teachers in the training school of Fisk University.
  • "W.E.B. Du Bois"
    • This ninth-grade level source asks, "How did W.E.B. Du Bois' research challenge dominant narratives about black Americans during the Jim Crow period?" This resource speaks to the importance of education to W.E.B Du Bois and his rise as a scholar. 
  • "Civil Rights - MLK" 
    • This ninth- to tenth-grade source focuses on Martin Luther King Jr. and speaks to his contribution to the Children's Crusade of 1963.
  • "Civil Liberties in California in the 20th Century"
    • This eleventh-grade source highlights how mid-20th-century Californians mobilized around the encroachment upon their civil liberties. Covers information about education and school activism. 
  • "The Great Depression" 
    • This eleventh-grade source focuses on how ordinary people experienced the Great Depression. While this source is focused on food access, it includes information on school children's lives during the Great Depression. 
  • "Civil Rights"
    • This eleventh-grade source focuses on how the Black civil rights movement encouraged other groups to mount their own campaigns. It speaks to student walk-outs and access to education. 

#KatesBookClub August Reads:

  • Free to Learn: How Alfredo Lopez Fought for the Right to Go to School 
    • Written by Cynthia Levinson, illustrated by Mirelle Ortega. Story of Alfredo Lopez, a child impacted by Tyler, Texas's law that to attend public school without paying for it, parents had to provide children's proof of citizenship.
  • How Do You Spell Unfair?: MacNolia Cox and the National Spelling Bee 
    • Written by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Frank Morrison. The 1936 story of spelling champion MacNolia Cox who faced discrimination while competing at the National Spelling Bee in Washington, DC.  
  • Mamie Tape Fights to Go to School:  Based on a True Story 
    • Written by Traci Huahn, illustrated by Michelle Jing Chan. California story of a young girl in San Francisco who is denied the opportunity to attend her neighborhood school
  • The School Is Not White! A True Story of the Civil Rights Movement
    • Written by Doreen Rappaport, illustrated by Curtis James. Story of the Carters, a family of sharecroppers who wanted their children to have equal opportunities and access to education. The Carters sent their children to the "all-white" school where they had to endure teasing and death threats.
  • Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family's Fight for Desegregation
    • Written and illustrated by Duncan Tonatiuh. The story of Sylvia Mendez's fight to attend her neighborhood school rather  than the "Mexican school." Precursor to Brown v. Board of Education, and suggested learning for all California students.
  • Shi-shi-etko 
    • Written by Nicola I. Campbell, illustrated by Kim LaFave. Follows Shi-shi-etko, a young girl who has to leave her family to attend residential schools.
  • Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down
    • Written by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illustrated by Brian Pinkney. Celebration of the Woolworth's lunch counter sit-in, where four college students staged a peaceful protest.
  • Steamboat School 
    • Written by Deborah Hopkinson, illustrated by Ron Husband. When a Missouri law shuts down a school for Black students, a preacher and his wife get creative and establish a school on a boat floating on the Mississippi River, not in the state of Missouri.
  • When the Schools Shut Down: A Young Girl's Story of Virginia's Lost Generation and the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Decision
    • Written by Yolanda Gladden and Tamara Pizzoli, illustrated by Keisha Morris. Story of the children of Prince Edward County located in Farmville, Virginia, who were prohibited from attending formal schools for five years after the Brown v. Board of Education decision.
  • When We Were Alone
    • Written by David A Robertson, illustrated by Julie Flett. A young girl asks her grandmother a series of questions that lead to her grandmother telling the story of her experiences in an Indigenous boarding school.

Recent Scholarship: