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Iron Act
The Iron Act is passed by the English Parliament, limiting the growth of the iron industry in the American colonies to protect the English Iron industry. -
Adam Smith
Smith believes that parents should decide how their children are educated and the state should give families money to hire teachers. -
Thomas Paine
He suggestes that the state should provide poor families with the money to pay for basic education for their children. -
European immigrants
European immigrants settle in rural enclaves and run their own non-English-speaking schools. -
Independence
Texas declares independence from Mexico -
First Bilingual Education Law
Ohio is the first state to adopt a bilingual education law, allowing German-English instruction at the parents' request -
Catholic Schools
Public schools are anti-Catholic and Bishop John Hughes asks the Public School Society for state aid for Catholic schools. When his request is denied he decides to build his own Catholic school system with private funds. -
Maclay Bill
NY legistlature passes the Maclay Bill, which bars all religious instruction from public schools and denies any state money to denominational schools. -
Louisiana
Louisiana passes a law similar to Ohio's, allowing French-English instruction. -
Elections
Nov. 6 - Lincoln elected President -
Native Americans
Congress prohibits Native Americans from being taught in their own languages. -
15th Amendment
15th Amendment Ratified, giving African Americans but not women the right to vote. -
President Ulysses S. Grant
Famous speech in which he resolves, "Not one dollar.. shall be appropriated to the support of an sectarian schools." -
Boarding School off the Reservation
Federal officials begin separating Native American children from their families and force them to attend boarding schools off the reservation. Students are punished when caught speaking their native language. -
Committee of Ten
The committee concludes that schools should maintain a single academic curriculum and all students should master an equally rigorous curriculum. -
Preparing for the future
The majority of students in urban centers are children of immigrants. Schools are called upon to prepare these students for jobs in the new urban industrial economy. -
Wright Brothers
Wright Brothers First Flight -
Required to know English
Italians, Slavs, and Jews arrive from Southern Europe. Congress passes the first federal language law- an English-speaking requirement for naturalization. -
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching develops the "standard unit," eventually called the Carnegie Unit, as a common measurement of time allocated to subjects in high schools. -
IQ Test
IQ Test is created. Psychologists begin tests for innate ability and future performance. -
WWI
World War I Ends -
Career Tracking
Many high schools switch from giving all students the classical college-prep curriculum to career tracking. -
Election of 1932
Franklin Roosevelt elected President -
Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom
Postulated that if parents could "shop" for schools, public schools would have to improve in order to attract student enrollment and tuition. -
Office of Economic Opportunity
Launched the first modern voucher in Alum Rock, California -
Lemon v. Kurtzman
First Amendment was violated when state aid to pay srivate schools for teachers' salaries and instructional materials was given to schools substantially religious in character -
Harlem Institutes
New York City's District 4 in Harlem Institutes an intra-district controlled choice program, allowing students to attend any school in their district. -
NABE
The National Association for Bilingual Education is founded. -
Charter schools
The birth of charter schools in Minnesota allows public funding and looser administrative requirements for new schools. -
Proposition 187
California passes Proposition 187, making it illegal for children of undocumented immigrants to attend public schools. -
Increase in Numbers
Nearly 1,800 charter schools are in operation in all but 13 states. 16 states have inter-district school choice in place. -
Horace Mann
Passes the first compulsory attendance law in the nation for children of elementary-school age.
