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Dame Schools
The dame schools were one of the beginnings of public schools. Here, children would learn their alphabet, some counting skills, and mostly learned discipline at this glorified childcare center. -
Noah Webster
Noah Webster greatly affected American education by creating one of the first standardized textbooks. He also was one of the pioneers in standardizing spelling as distinctly non-British, the spellings we still use today. -
Catherine Beecher
Catherine Beecher, sister of famed author Harriet Beecher Stowe, was one of the first to be a big proponent of women becoming school teachers. She established a college where women could be taught to be teachers and even today we still see a higher proportion of women teachers in the classroom. -
Horace Mann
He was one of the first influential education reformers. He helped to bring all of the schools in MA up to a standardized level as well as pushed for free public education for all students. We still see many of his ideas in effect today. -
Bishop John Hughes
Bishop John Hughes, an Irish Catholic Bishop living in New York, pushed heavily for either 1 the separation of church and state (he didn't want Catholic students being indoctrinated with Protestant beliefs) or 2 the advent of Catholic schools. In his lifetime he eventually saw both of these things come to pass. -
John Dewey
Known as the Father of Progressive Education, John Dewey tried to reform education so that the whole child was the focus. He thought that it was important to establish not only academic learning, but also social, emotional, and vocational learning. -
Immigration at the Turn of the Century
Between 1890 and 1930, approximately 3 million kids entered the country. This led to a saturation of the school system which was now also trying to teach English to these immigrants. This also helped develop the school system into a place where US ideals and culture were taught. -
Brown v Board of Education *Most Important Event
In this landmark Supreme Court case, the court ruled that US public schools must integrate. This was not terribly well received in the South, but eventually the schools did all integrate leading to a loss of may jobs for African Americans in education. Even today, 60 years later, we see issues of race and racial bias in our schools, even though they are integrated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education -
Little Rock Nine
Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas was determined not to integrate the schools in Little Rock and even called in the Arkansas National Guard to stop 9 African-American kids from attending Little Rock's Central High School. President Eisenhower then trumped Governor Faubus and sent in the 101st Airborne division of the US Army to make sure the Little Rock Nine made it to school. -
Sputnik and NDEA *Most Important Event
When the Russians successfully launched Sputnik, the first satellite, the US was sent into a frenzy. It was immediately assumed that our education system was failing and for the first time, Federal money was put into education, especially math and science, in the name of national defense. We still see a huge focus (and large sums of money) on math and science
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Sputnik_Spurs_Passage_of_National_Defense_Education_Act.htm -
ESEA *Most Important Event
ESEA was enacted by LBJ as a part of his "Great Society" which included a war on poverty, poor access to education and medicine, among other things. This is one of the first times that significant amounts of federal money was given to the schools. Unfortunately, a lot of this money was misused in the schools because of lack of regulation. Each president since has done his best to make his own reform
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_and_Secondary_Education_Act -
EHA/IDEA *Most Important Event
The Education for All Handicapped Children Act was enacted in 1975 and then was revamped as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 1990. These acts guaranteed free and appropriate public education to all handicapped children. This has been a great thing helping both the disabled and non-disabled kids to learn and grow, but it has also had a large financial burden on the schools.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individuals_with_Disabilities_Education_Act -
A Nation at Risk *Most Important Event
This was a report presented to President Ronald Reagan saying that the American education system was in absolute disarray. Even though many of the results were unfounded, many requirements were placed upon schools such as graduation requirements and a focus on high stakes testing. We still see this culture of high stakes testing existing in our school systems today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Nation_at_Risk -
NCLB
No Child Left Behind was an education act signed into law by President George W. Bush that was not very well received. It had goals for 100% of students on grade level in math and English as well as tying teacher evaluations to some of the high stakes testing instated by Nation at Risk -
RTTT
This is a type of education reform instated by the Obama administration that is most well known for providing lots of federal funds to help after the effects on education from the 2008 recession. This was a great idea, but unfortunately all of these federal funds were tied to competition that favored larger states and those states that were funded by big business and neglected the poorer states.
