Education and Equality
Throughout the history of Education in the United States, the United States has not upheld the core democratic value of equality. In the beginning, only white males were allowed to achieve an education. Later, white females and eventually blacks and other ethnicities were allowed to go to school. However, even today with those changes, equality in education is not afforded to all.
During the early years of education the United States did not have an equal educational system for all students, it was mainly only wealthy white males who could get an education. These white males were able to go to elementary school, middle school, and high school then after completing those requirements were able to go further and go on to college which helped them become more intelligent and better at their career path they were choosing. Although white women were able to go to school they did not get the same educational opportunities as the white males. Those women who went to school and were not taught from home usually went to schools for white males when the males were working. (N.W.H.M, 2) “Women were discouraged from pursuing a higher education because it was considered unnatural for a woman to be educated.” (N.W.H.M, 3)
The enslavement of African Americans made it almost impossible for educational opportunities for many generations of African Americans. The United States experienced legal separation in schools and other public places between whites and blacks during the Plessy V. Ferguson case which stated that “schools be segregated into black and white facilities as long as they were separate but equal.” Schools were supposed to receive equal resources but there was an obvious inequality, the school districts for blacks had less money, which meant that the schools could not afford good quality teachers or good facilities like the whites. It was not until 1954 when the
Supreme Court ruled during Brown v. Board of Education that “separate but...