American Education In The 1930s

Presently, many schools across the United States have a delayed starting time, but this would probably not have been a possibility in the 1930s. Education during the Great Depression was less than mediocre, with property taxes that supported schools falling whenever the value of farm land decreased. Unfortunately, the value of farm land was on a down-hill slope (Davis). Consequently, many schools were forced to close due to lack of money, and the schools that stayed open struggled to pay their teachers. Yet, education at the time was highly centralized around learning to read (Reinhardt and Ganzel). Also during this time, the process of school consolidation began occurring. This was the act of small schools merging with other small schools …show more content…
Now the spotlight was on school segregation. This occurred because of a historic court case. At the time, African-American students were denied access to all-white schools and were required to attend separate schools. In February of 1951, Oliver L. Brown, the father of Linda Brown, a third grader at Monroe Elementary School in Topeka, Kansas, spoke up about the issue (Martin). Because Brown’s daughter was not allowed to attend the all-white school only seven blocks away, she had to walk a mile to the bus stop every day. Brown encouraged the parents who had children in the same situation as his daughter to enroll their children in Sumner Elementary School, the all-white school that was closer to home (Wishart). The elementary school, however, restricted all African American students from attending their school. At the time, Kansas state law allowed cities with populations of 15,000 or more to build schools designated solely for white students (Martin). By 1950, 11 court cases with similar issues had reached the Kansas Supreme Court, but none were successful in overturning the state law. Because of this discrimination, the Topeka chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) filed a lawsuit with the U.S. district court. The court, however, declared this discrimination technically not illegal because of the law in place (“History and Culture”). The case was then appealed and eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court on May 17, 1954, and was backed up by similar NAACP cases from Delaware, South Carolina, Virginia, and Washington D.C. (“History and Culture”). The Supreme Court ruled that in all states, segregated schools based on race were unconstitutional