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1901
Joliet Junior College, in Joliet, Illinois, opens. It is the first public community college in the U.S. -
1904
Mary McLeod Bethune, an African American educator, Mary McLeod Bethune, an African American educator, founds the Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls in Daytona Beach, Florida. -
1909
In order to improve high school graduation rates, the Columbus Ohio School Board authorizes the creation of junior high schools. Indianola Junior High School opens that fall and becomes the first junior high school in the U.S. -
1914
The Smith-Lever Act establishes a system of cooperative extension services connected to land grant universities, provides federal funds for extension activities, and nationalizes 4-H. -
1918
World War I ends on 11 November. The World War I affected education because there was a lot of changes made by the government on American education. -
1919
All states have laws providing funds for transporting children to school. -
1941
The U.S. enters World War II after the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor on December 7. During the next four years, much of the country's resources go to the war effort. Education is put on the back burner as many young men quit school to enlist; schools are faced with personnel problems as teachers and other employees enlist, are drafted, or leave to work in defense plants; school construction is put on hold. -
1946
At one minute after midnight on January 1st, Kathleen Casey-Kirschling is born, the first of nearly 78-million baby boomers, beginning a generation that results in unprecedented school population growth and massive social change. She becomes a teacher -
1955
- Rosa Parks, a Montgomery, Alabama seamstress, refuses to give up her seat on the bus to a Caucasian passenger and is subsequently arrested and fined. The Montgomery bus boycott follows, giving impetus to the Civil Rights Movement. A year later, in the case of Browder v. Gale, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that segregated seating on buses is unconstitutional.
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1994-1995
Whiteboards find their way into U.S. classrooms in increasing numbers and begin to replace the blackboard -
2007
Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old student, kills two students in a dorm and then 30 others in a classroom building at Virginia Tech University. Fifteen others are wounded. His suicide brings the death toll to 33, making it the deadliest school shooting incident in U.S. history. -
2009
The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 provides more than 90-billion dollars for education, nearly half of which goes to local school districts to prevent layoffs and for school modernization and repair. It includes the Race to the Top initiative, a 4.35-billion-dollar program designed to induce reform in K-12 education. -
2012
On December 14, Adam Lanza, 20, kills his mother and then invades Sandy Hook Elementary School where he kills 20 children and six adults, including principal Dawn Hochsprung and psychologist Mary Sherlachmaking, making this the second deadliest mass shooting by a single person in U.S. history. -
2013
On Friday, June 14 the Chicago Public Schools announce that they will be laying off 663 employees, including 420 teachers. A month later, they lay off another 2100 employees including more than 1000 teachers! CPS blames the layoffs on "the state's failure to enact pension reform." -
2014
The Minnesota State High School League votes on December 4 to adopt a policy allowing transgender students to join female sports teams. Minnesota is the 33rd state to have a formal transgender student policy. -
2015
- President Obama joins the "too-much-testing" movement as his new plan calls for limiting "standardized testing to no more than 2% of class time."
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2016
More than 60 schools in Detroit are forced to close on Monday, January 11th due to a teacher "sick out" called to protest conditions in the Detroit Public Schools, which are "drowning under 3.5 billion of debt." -
2018
Following the successful outcome of the West Virginia teachers strike, teachers from Kentucky, Arizona, and Oklahoma begin to take action to improve their pay and benefits. -
2019
On January 14, more than 30,000 public school teachers in the Los Angeles go on strike over class size, pay, and lack of support staff. -
2020
As COVID-19 cases still surge in many parts of the country, states begin to implement their plans for reopening K-12 schools. Though many major universities will offer primarily online classes for the fall semester, others still plan to provide "in-person" instruction.
