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Minnijean Brown, Thelma Mothershed, and Melba Pattillo (three of the Little Rock Nine), and NAACP president Daisy Bates.

Selling Out Our Public Schools

For decades, the term “school choice” was widely and rightly dismissed as racist. Now it’s the law in thirty-three states.
by Diane Ravitch via New York Review of Books on February 20, 2025
Linda McMahon speaking at the Republican National Convention on July 18 in Milwaukee.

Back to the Future

Why “Let’s have public schools like the Founding Fathers had” is such a terrible idea.
by Adam Laats via Slate on November 20, 2024
Collage of people in "preppy" clothing.

We’re All Preppy Now

How a style steeped in American elitism took over the world.
by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela via The New Republic on August 14, 2023
Samantha Hull looks for books at the Ephrata Public Library on March 2. Hull has been fighting book bans as a school librarian in Lancaster County, Pa., where conservatives are pushing to remove books that touch on gender identity and racism.
partner

Conservatives Long Ago Lost The War Over America’s Public Schools

As conservative groups give up on public schools, the fight today is about looting public resources.
by Adam Laats via Made By History on May 24, 2022
JFK and Jackie Kennedy with wedding party

You’ll Miss Us When We’re Gone

The rise and fall of the WASP.
by Lewis H. Lapham, Michael Knox Beran via Lapham’s Quarterly on May 3, 2022

US Prep Schools Held Student Exchanges with Elite Nazi Academies

The American exchange organizers were unaware that the German pupils and staff were charged with an explicitly propagandistic mission.
by Helen Roche via The Conversation on December 14, 2021
Abandoned school bus with broken windows.

White Flight In Noxubee County: Why School Integration Never Happened

After the U.S Supreme Court forced school integration in early 1970, white families fled to either racist Central Academy or new Mennonite schools.
by Donna Ladd via Mississippi Free Press on October 29, 2021

The Dark History of School Choice

How an argument for segregated schools became a rallying cry for privatizing public education.
by Diane Ravitch via New York Review of Books on January 4, 2021
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey speaks about school COVID policy.
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The Undemocratic History of School "Pandemic Pods"

Why Americans rejected educating only the children of the wealthy.
by Mark Boonshoft via Made By History on August 5, 2020

Are You a Seg Academy Alum, Too? Let’s Talk.

Reflecting on the impact of an education in an institution deliberately set up to defy court-ordered desegregation.
by Ellen Ann Fentress via The Bitter Southerner on June 7, 2019
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Betsy DeVos Wants to Resurrect an Old — and Failed — Model of Public Education

Government-funded schools evolved from a broader system of public education that couldn't provide what students needed.
by Adam Laats via Made By History on May 16, 2019

Evangelicals Bring the Votes, Catholics Bring the Brains

To understand Catholic overrepresentation on the U.S. Supreme Court, we must look to the history of American Catholic education.
by Gene Zubovich via Aeon on October 9, 2018
Map of Oregon

Oregon’s Racist Past

Until the mid-20th century, Oregon was perhaps the most racist place outside the southern states, possibly even of all the states.
by Linda Gordon via Longreads on July 12, 2018
Children jump rope in the dirt yard of a Catholic school while their peers watch.

Pierce at 100

A century ago, the Court recognized the essential right of parents to direct the education of their children.
by Mark David Hall, Ernie Walton via Law & Liberty on May 30, 2025
A crowd of Black children walking into school.

How Delayed Desegregation Deprived Black Children of Their Right to Education

On the ongoing battle to desegregate schools across America throughout the 1960s.
by Noliwe Rooks via Literary Hub on March 19, 2025

I Pledge . . . Allegiance?

American law says schools must honor the Pledge of Allegiance. Schools may have other plans.
by Maggie Phillips via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on February 4, 2025
Home owners Loan Corporation map of Detroit.

Beyond Brown: The Failure of Desegregation in the North and America’s Lingering Racial Fault Lines

On the ongoing legal struggle for educational and racial equality across the United States.
by Michelle Adams via Literary Hub on January 15, 2025
The “Little Red Schoolhouse” in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Schoolhouse Crock

In every generation, charlatans come along with a plan to make education better by spending less money on schools.
by Jennifer C. Berkshire via The Baffler on January 2, 2025
Former President Jimmy Carter speaking to the congregation at Maranatha Baptist Church before teaching Sunday school in 2019.

Jimmy Carter’s Most Perplexing Legacy

For all of his personal Christian devotion, he could not capture the hearts of white evangelicals.
by Thomas S. Kidd via The Dispatch on December 31, 2024
Fred Grey photographed in front of a book shelf of law books.
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The History of Segregation Scholarships

A narrative not of brain drain but of Black aspiration.
by Crystal R. Sanders via HNN on October 15, 2024

American Exchanges: Third Reich’s Elite Schools

How the Nazi government used exchange student programs to foster sympathy for Nazism in the United States.
by Helen Roche via OUPblog on March 26, 2024
A kindergarten teacher coaches a group of crouched children to duck and cover in a national air raid drill, Chicago, 1954.
partner

The Politics of Fear Is Damaging American Education—And Has Been for Decades

Politicians have often sought to remedy educational panic with remedies that do more harm than good.
by Diana D'Amico Pawlewicz via Made By History on December 14, 2023
"The American River Ganges," a 1871 political cartoon by Thomas Nast from Harper's Weekly, depicting Catholic priests as foreign crocodiles preying on US children, illustrating the fear behind the proposed Blaine Amendment.

After the Blaine Era

The landscape for educational freedom is finally freed of 19th century prejudices, but other federal constitutional questions remain.
by Bruno V. Manno via Law & Liberty on December 4, 2023
An open textbook.
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The Right-Wing Textbooks Shaping What Americans Know

Conservative curricula are being pushed into tax-funded history classrooms.
by Adam Laats via Made By History on October 11, 2023
A statue of Christopher Columbus.

Middle Schoolers Take on Columbus

A lesson on contextualizing history.
by Alex Pinelli via Perspectives on History on October 8, 2020

The Girls High School Experiment

In 1830, Boston had just concluded a radical experiment — a high school for girls.
via Boston Archives And Records Management on January 17, 2018
Schoolchildren writing on a chalkboard.
partner

The New Tax Law Poses a Hidden Threat to American Democracy

Undermining public education will exacerbate polarization and mistrust.
by Johann N. Neem, Tony Tian-Ren Lin via Made By History on January 8, 2018
Demonstrators protesting new history curriculum
partner

How The Culture Wars Destroyed Public Education

The left's Pyrrhic victory in the culture wars.
by Andrew Hartman via Made By History on September 5, 2017
partner

The Founding Fathers Made Our Schools Public. We Should Keep Them That Way.

They believed public schools were the foundation of a virtuous republic.
by Johann N. Neem via Made By History on August 20, 2017

Why Do Schoolhouses Matter?

The rise of public education in America.
by Johann N. Neem via Public Seminar on July 20, 2017
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