Private School History in the US

(above) Collegiate School, the oldest operating private school in the United States The first schools in the United States were private. Education was haphazard across the country, and schooling was available for a select few. Schools depended on tuition from parents, donations, and sometimes support from local governments. In the 19th century, public schools began to spread across the United States. As the number of public schools grew, private schools began to be associated with class and religious organizations. Elite private schools in the United States began modeling themselves after the elite private schools in England: Eton and Harrow. The South was slower in establishing public schools across the region, but by the 1940s, public schools were widespread. However, also in the 1940s, southern White students started to move to private schools to avoid integration. After the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case, which banned segregation in public schools, state and local governments across the South established tuition voucher programs that were used to shut down public schools, rather than desegregate. In 1964, Griffin v. School Board of Prince Edward County was brought to the Supreme Court. In Prince Edward County, Virginia. the local officials refused to collect taxes to fund integrated public schools. They instead opened whites-only private schools that were funded by tuition grants. The public schools in the county were closed for five years and left African American students with little means for education. This approach was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, but it provided a model for local and state governments across the South and the country. Today, private schools follow a variety of models and are formed by a plethora of organizations. A private school can be a small school formed by a religious organization with mostly low-income students, an elite prep school that funnels students to Ivy League colleges, or a tiny school that encourages students to write their curriculum. However, across the board, private schools are still lacking in racial and economic diversity. About one in four private school students are white, and students from low-income families make up about 9% of private school enrollment.