Private and locally established common schools existed in the old Mississippi Territory in what is now Alabama. The 1819 State Constitution declared: Schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged in this State; and the General Assembly shall take measures to preserve, from unnecessary waste or damage, such lands as are or hereafter may be granted by the United States for the use of schools within each township in this State, and apply the funds, which may be raised from such lands; in strict conformity to the object of such grant. The General Assembly shall take like measures for the improvement of such lands as have been or may be hereafter granted by the United States to this State, for the support of a Seminary of learning, and the moneys which may be raised from such lands, by rent, lease, or sale, or from any other quarter, for the purpose, aforesaid, shall be and remain a fund for the exclusive support of a State University, for the promotion of the arts, literature, and the sciences: and it shall be the duty of the General Assembly, as early as may be, to provide effectual means for the improvement and permanent security of the funds and endowments of such institution. In 1822,
Athens State University was established as a private institution called the Athens Female Academy. It did not become a public school until 1974. LaGrange College was established as a private college in 1830. It was destroyed during the war and reestablished in 1872. It is now the
University of North Alabama. In 1850, there were 1,323 schools with about thirty-seven thousand students enrolled. The state's voters approved a referendum calling for free public schools for white children in 1852. The legislature approved funding for such schools in the 1854 Public Schools Act. This decision was not without controversy. The 1858 Report of the Superintendent of Education, Gabriel B. Du Val discussed the population's attitude toward education, "Fortunately however for Alabama, and it is believed the Southern States generally, this indifference has not been felt toward
education itself but toward governmental aid in procuring it. The happy condition of our social relations and general diffusion of wealth has rendered it
comparatively unnecessary, wherever it was needed private generosity generally anticipated public aid." By 1860, about a quarter of white school-aged children were enrolled. The 1868 constitution required free, racially integrated public school funded by the state. During this period, it was a crime in Alabama to teach a slave to read. Slavery was abolished in 1865. From the end of the
Reconstruction era in the 1870s down to the 1940s, the state and local governments gave far less money to all-black public schools compared to the favored white public schools. (There were no racially integrated schools). However many private schools for Blacks were funded by Northern philanthropy well into the 20th century. Support came from the
American Missionary Association; the
Peabody Education Fund; the
Jeanes Fund (also known as the Negro Rural School Fund); the
Slater Fund; the
Rosenwald Fund; the
Southern Education Foundation; and the
General Education Board, which was massively funded by the Rockefeller family. In 1880, a quarter of all whites over the age of ten were illiterate. The number was 18.84% in 1890 and 14.8% in 1900. Only two states, South Carolina and Louisiana had higher figures of illiteracy. Comparable national illiteracy rates are 1880 17%, 1890 13% and 1900 11%. In 2012, the state reported 14.8% of all adults were illiterate. Recent reports use different standards of illiteracy than earlier compilations, and so the numbers are not completely comparable. In the 1890s, about 25% of white and 38% of black students who entered the first grade left in their first month, unable to pay tuition. The state's 1901
constitution prohibited both racially integrated schools and state aid to
religious schools. It reduced property taxes but required schools to be funded by the localities using tuition and user fees. The state began to require each county to have a high school, and by 1918 all but ten counties met the obligation. By the mid-1930s, two-thirds of the children of landowners reached high school, but only a third of the children of white sharecroppers. In an effort to reduce illiteracy the state created "Opportunity Schools" in 1920. These schools enrolled young adults who had not completed fourth grade. The schools taught basic reading and writing to the fourth-grade level. As a reaction to
Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, both state and local officials took steps to preserve de facto educational segregation. In 1955, the state allowed public schools to use intelligence and other tests to assign students. Such tests were a method to keep schools segregated. The state also allowed public funds to flow to private schools that admitted only students of one race. In 1956, the
Autherine Lucy, the first black student admitted to the
University of Alabama, was expelled. In 1958,
John Patterson was elected governor on a platform that promised "if a school is ordered to be integrated, it will be closed down". In January 2026, Governor
Kay Ivey signed an
executive order confirming that Alabama would participate in the Federal Education Freedom Tax Credit Program, which confers tax benefits for donations to approved programs that fund scholarships for elementary and secondary school students. ==Primary and secondary education==