American Education

By lexigagon

  • First "free school" in Virginia opens ***

  • Harvard College

    The first higher education institutaion in what is now the United States, is established in Newtowne (now Cambridge), Massachusettes

  • Massachusetts Law of 1642

    Massachusetts Bay School Law is passed.
    It requires that parents ensure their children know the principles of religion and the capital laws of the commonwealth.

  • Massachusetts Law of 1647 - "Old Deluder Satan Law"

    It decrees that every town of at least 50 families hire a schoolmaster who would teach the town's children to read and write and that all towns of at least 100 families should have a Latin grammar school master who will prepare students to attend Harvard College.
    "It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the scriptures."

  • More General Diffusion of Knowledge

    Provide the masses with the basic education necessary to ensure good government, public safety, and happiness.
    Each county was to be divided into parts called hundreds; each hundred was to provide an elementary education that would be free for all white children for 3 years.
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    Noah Webster

    Noah Webster writes "A Grammatical Institute of the English Language" consisting of a spelling book, a grammer book and a reader

  • Young Ladies Academy

    First academy for girls opens in Philadelphia
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    The Common School Movement

    The American education system as we know it today began to take form in the common school movement. State systems of education were established to provide a free education for all Americans.

  • The Gary Plan ***

    The Gary Plan was introduced by William Wirt. The Gary Plan was based around work, study, plan. He wanted to make every working man a scholar, and every scholar a working man. They offered classes in schools such as hygeniene and numerous extracurricular classes. Towards the end of the Gary era, riots broke out because they thought that the Gary Plan was just preparing kids to work in factories.
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    IQ Testing

    First large scale IQ testing of American adults (army conscrips in WWI). This was the beginning of the measurement movement.
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    The postwar "baby boom"

    Kindergarted and elementary school enrollments increased 37% from 17.7 million to 24.3 million

  • Brown vs. The Board of Education ***

    The US Supreme Court rules that segregated education facilities ahve no place in public education and generate a feeling of inferiority that affects the child's motivation to learn. This marked the beginning of the Civil Rights revolution. The general principles of the movement were later applied to advancing the rights of women, racial and ethnic groups, the aged, and the disabled.

  • Elementary and Secondary Education Act ***

    This act said that integrated schools would get more funds while schools that were still segregated would have their government funds taken away.

  • The Bilingiual Education Act

    This act was passed and gave federal funds to school districts to provide bilingual education to low-income students with limited English proficiency.

  • IDEA ***

    Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act
    This act started as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act. It was to provide people with disabilities an education in the least restrictive environment. There were many amendments made to this act, and then in 1990 they reauthorized it as the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act.