Education Reform Dbq

Words: 1911
Pages: 8

Education reform adapted with the time period and with the students who were living through it. Women, African Americans and the poor have been affected in all types of ways since the 19th century. Education reform has benefitted those demographics. People would fight over who was in charge of determining education, between federal and state government or the families. Through history it is easy to see that they all work together to determine what is best for the nation as a whole. Before the Education Reform, only wealthy white families could send their children to school. While African-American children were allowed to attend some schools, most African-American families could not afford to school their children. Most girls did not get the …show more content…
Many people argue that there are still flaws in the education system, but there has been a clear advancement. The education reform has positively impacted women, African Americans and the poor through equality and access. African Americans have been influenced by the education reform in order to obtain equal rights within society. Considering they are minorities, African Americans were restricted from the right to attend certain schools in the 19th century. In the early 19th century, the south had strict laws against educating African Americans to preserve slavery. The white schools were superior to those of the African Americans, “the buildings were crowded, the teachers were not as experienced and there were not as many courses offered in the curriculum.”(Educational). Many whites didn’t want African Americans to be educated because they feared that they would go against white supremacy. In 1860 Republican, Abraham Lincoln was elected president. Lincoln was an abolitionist, which brought hope to many African Americans. In 1865 the 13th amendment was passed, which abolished slavery. This benefited African Americans because they were a step closer to complete freedom, even though this demographic was …show more content…
All nations are confronted with the problem of poor children, which means there needs to be a way to compensate for these children. The system in the 19th century was not fair to poor families considering you had to pay for an education. Low income families now had a motive to fight for an equal education and a way to help the poor access this. Impoverished children got an education from Dame Schools that were held in someone’s home taught by the mothers of the children. Horace Mann was an important education reformer for the poor. In 1837 the first National Board of Education was made, and choose Horace Mann as its secretary. Mann fought for tuition-free education. The problem with his reform movement was that money would have to be raised to build schools and staff with well informed teachers. There was the problem of poor versus wealthy towns; and that of the poor parts of town not being able to offer a good education compared to the schools of wealthy towns. This problem led to Manns idea of “teacher training academies, called normal schools” (Educational). This benefitted the poor because teachers of all types of schools would have been taught the same material, given no school has an advantage. This then backfired as revenue raised for an education. When Mann past away it was up to other education reformers to encourage tuition-free education, “before the Civil War, 16