-
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The first public school in the American colonies, Boston Latin School, opens.
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Massachusetts Bay Colony passes the Compulsory Education Law, requiring parents to teach their children to read.
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Massachusetts Bay Colony becomes the first to require towns of at least 50 households to hire a teacher to educate the town’s children. Towns of 100 families should build public elementary schools
-
An evening school
for working children
is established in
New Amsterdam
(now New York
City.) -
Quaker school
for black students
established in
Philadelphia -
The New York Public
School Society is formed by
wealthy businessmen to
provide education for poor
children. Schools are run
on the “Lancasterian”
model, in which one “master”
teaches hundreds of
students in a single room -
Ohio becomes the
first state to
adopt a bilingual
education law,
allowing for
German-English
instruction at
parents’ requests. -
Platt Rogers
Spencer develops
the first widely
used handwriting
teaching system
in schools, called
Spencerian penmanship. -
The first school for children with mental disabilities opens in Massachusetts.
-
The National
Teachers
Association is
formed. The name
later changes to
National Education
Association (NEA). -
A school for Native-American
children opens in Carlisle, PA
with 147 students. -
The National Congress of Mothers is organized in Washington during a meeting attended by 2,000 people. Today, the group is known as the National Parent Teachers Association, or PTA.
-
A sex education program is
introduced citywide in public
high schools in Chicago, Illinois -
The United States Congress
approves the National School
Lunch Act of 1946, creating the
modern school lunch program. -
The School of Performing Arts is the first public high school to specialize in music, dance, theater, and broadcasting. It is a division of the Metropolitan Vocational High School in New York.
-
The U.S. Supreme Court rules schools segregated by race are unequal and therefore unconstitutional.
-
The School Breakfast Program pilot is launched. It becomes permanent in 1975.
-
Congress approves
the Education for
All Handicapped
Children Act,
requiring states to
provide free education
for all children
with disabilities. -
The Education Act
of 1986 is expanded
to mandate biological
education about
HIV, AIDS, and sexually
transmitted
diseases in public
schools. -
Proposition 187 passes in California,
making it illegal for children of undocumented
immigrants to attend public school.
