Education

Public schools are places where children come together to learn and prepare to be citizens in our democracy. Because of this, public schools often serve as centers of our communities, connecting neighbors with neighbors, and providing resources and support - from health care to cultural celebration.

Introduction

Unfortunately, Florida’s education system has a history of excluding students on the basis of race. Dating back to the nineteenth century, Florida’s education laws and policies were intentionally crafted to perpetuate segregated schools with funding that was allocated to favor white students and schools over Black and Latina/o students. Despite progress on creating an education system that works for all children, Florida’s education system today shows echoes of these laws and policies.

Legislators and public-school advocates should have a deep understanding of Florida’s historically inequitable policies to competently grasp how to improve the state’s system to fully fund public schools that are able to serve every child, no matter their race, where they live, or how much they can afford.

Image Source: Florida Memory
Image Description: Mother escorting her two daughters to Orchard Villa School in Miami-Dade County, one of the first public grade schools to be desegregated in Florida, 1959

1865 1865-1872 – Freedmen’s Bureau Establishes Schools in Florida The value Black people placed on education and its central connection to freedom, democracy, and civic values long predated the Civil War. Between the 1830s and the 1890s, ... Learn More

1866 1866 – Black Codes Establish School Funding Discrimination In 1865, overtly discriminatory laws known as the “Black Codes” were encoded in the Constitution of the State of Florida. At that time, in post-Civil War Florida, white bac... Learn More

1885 1885 – Florida’s Constitution Codifies School Segregation By enforcing segregation in Florida’s schools, the state Legislature not only created a separate education system for Black and white students, it also starved the Black sc... Learn More

1895 1895 – “Sheats Law” Targets the Only Integrated Private School in Florida In 1891, the Orange Park Normal and Industrial School was established by the American Missionary Association of New York (AMA), an abolitionist organization working to educ... Learn More

1920 1920s-1940s – NAACP Fights for Equity in Teacher Pay Beginning in the 1920s, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) began to focus on equalization of resources in Black and white schools,[1] re... Learn More

1954 1954 – Florida Resists the Brown v. Board of Education Decision Although Brown v. Board of Education[1]ended the “separate but equal” Supreme Court ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson,[2] Florida acted quickly to circumvent its intention. At t... Learn More

1955 1955 – The Pork Chop Gang Fights Desegregation and Government Funding In the 1950s, Florida had one of the country’s least representative Legislatures, with the northern counties dominating both the House and the Senate. The group of senators... Learn More

1968 1968 – Florida’s Teachers Walk Out In 1968, Florida still had segregated schools, but Black and white teachers had joined together to stage the first statewide teacher strike in the United States to demand h... Learn More

1970 1970 – Governor Kirk Fights Busing Plan The Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 clearly stated that separate was not equal. The court’s subsequent decision (Brown II) the next year ruled... Learn More

1973 1973 – Florida Establishes Education Finance Program The 1960 census and its use in apportionment of the state Legislature largely ended the reign of the Pork Chop Gang and ushered in a Legislature that more closely reflected... Learn More

1998 1998 – Voters Approve Amendment Making Education a “Paramount Duty” The Reconstruction Constitution of 1868 was the first of Florida’s institutions to declare that education was a “paramount” duty of the state. However, the Jim Crow-era Con... Learn More

2002 2002 – Voters Approve Free Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten In 2002, Florida voters once again signaled their support for quality education for all students by approving a constitutional amendment that established a free, universal,... Learn More

2010 2010 – Florida Cuts Education Funding in Response to Great Recession Florida’s education funding has always been inadequate, perpetuating two separate and unequal systems, one for white students and one for Black students. In 1866, the Legis... Learn More

2023 2023 – Expansion of Private School Vouchers As efforts to desegregate schools in the U.S. increased after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, opponents to integration developed tactics to maintain segregation thr... Learn More

2023 2023 – Today: Shaping Our Future in Education Fully funding our public K-12 schools will ensure that all of Florida’s children have the opportunity to grow and thrive. This means increasing per capita investment to be ... Learn More