Timeline of Public Education Work
A right which must be made available to all on equal terms
Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments... It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today, it is the principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him adjust normally to his environment.
In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms...
We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of "separate but equal" has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.
- U.S. Supreme Court, May 17, 1954
From the early 1950s through the 1990s, the American Friends Service Committee undertook a range of programs throughout the United States "To help communities secure the right of every child to the full, equal, and impartial use of public school facilities." The work was carried out by an interracial group of dedicated and courageous staff, parents, students, community leaders, teachers, and concerned individuals.
In 1951, the Community Relations Program initiated a program in Washington, D.C., focusing on the elimination of segregation in public and private education and recreation. After the U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1954, the work moved from D.C. to the South where an AFSC consultant was on loan to the Southern Regional Council and local affiliates.
In 1956, AFSC began the School Integration Program in North Carolina, a moderate southern state with a commitment to public education. As of July 1957, 12 Black students were admitted to formerly all-white schools in Greensboro and Winston-Salem-a small number, but a beginning.
During the late 1950s, AFSC added staff in Mississippi and Louisiana to support and work with local citizens committed to integration. A program in Little Rock, Arkansas, focused on fostering communication between the races and considering the moral issues of the crisis in that city.
In 1960, the AFSC began work in Prince Edward County, Virginia, where the public schools were closed in the fall of 1959 to avoid the court order to desegregate. White children were being educated in private schools, but 1700 Negro children were without any educational facilities. An Emergency Placement Project placed 47 junior and senior high school students in communities in northern and midwestern states for the 1960/61 and several subsequent school years. In New York City, the Southern Negro Student Project brought students from the South for two years, to live with northern families, obtain a good education, and develop leadership skills.
During the 1960s, AFSC education programs expanded to South Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi. In Jackson, while the initial focus was the desegregation of public schools, there was an increasing recognition of the important relationship between economic factors and race relations. Gradually, the emphasis shifted from achieving desegregation in as many communities as possible to helping local school boards to adopt desegregation plans. Simultaneously, work included informing minority communities of their rights, developing local leadership, conferring on strategy, and helping obtain legal counsel.
In 1965, recognizing the implications for school desegregation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act (institutions receiving federal funds would face withdrawal if there was discrimination), the School Desegregation Task Force was formed in association with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. This task force of AFSC staff and concerned community activists worked across the South-in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South and North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, and Missouri-to inform communities of their rights under Title VI and hold the government accountable.
Out of this work, the Southeastern Public Education Program (SEPEP) emerged. It was the Service Committee's largest and most significant work on public education, with a nationwide impact. During its existence from 1968 to 1980, SEPEP's efforts included: providing technical assistance and workable techniques to improve local education; clarification of citizen rights in relation to school systems; holding local, state, and federal government accountable for building education systems of quality and relevance; addressing issues of discipline, school finance, minimum competency testing, sexism in curriculum, hiring, extra-curricular activities, and building cadres of informed and effective parents.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, AFSC added program work on school integration and urban education in Chicago, San Francisco, and Pasadena. In Seattle and Portland, the focus was on issues concerning American Indian youth and developing innovative education programs and alternatives within and outside of the school system. Programs involved parents, students, educators, and local institutions in seeking solutions to the problems of urban education and promoting better human relations across racial and religious lines.
Throughout the 1970s, AFSC's education programs continued to lift up the concern about barriers to equal educational opportunities and the crisis in U.S. public education. The range of issues expanded to include student rights, sex role stereotypes, work on multi-lingual and multi-cultural issues, militarism, employment and career opportunities.
In 1975, the Boston Public Education Program was initiated to help end unconstitutional practices, address bilingual issues, and create more effective schools in a city that was in turmoil over court-ordered busing for desegregation.
Other education programs in the 1970's included: a Students' Rights and Responsibilities Project in Dayton; a Chicago Public Education Project that focused on the arbitrary use of discipline, mis-labeling students, and violations of government regulations; a Baltimore project developing alternatives to public education; and efforts by the Southeastern Public Education Program (SEPEP) to address sex discrimination, inequalities in discipline and school suspension, and compliance with civil rights laws.
During the 1980s, AFSC education programs continued in Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, and Portland. Efforts included informing students of their legal rights and strengthening community understanding and the capacity to address local public education issues, such as discipline, desegregation, the disproportionate suspension of minority students.
In 1987, implementation of the Youth and Militarism Program combined
AFSC's concern for public education with the concern over the increasing militarization of many public schools across the nation. By the late 1980s, AFSC program work with young people had shifted to a focus on youth as a constituency, undertaking new projects addressing issues of specific concern to youth, such as drug abuse, homelessness, gender and sexual identity, and relevant local, national, and international events.
Today, an important focus of the Criminal Justice Program is educating communities about the connection between failing public education and increased incarceration of youth - particularly youth of color.
Fifty years after the landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education, the struggle for decent equal public education continues. The decision stated that "it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education." We are reminded that, despite significant progress, the promise of a quality education for all children has not yet been realized.
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