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Jeffersons Proposal
Jefferson drafted a proposal to guarantee three years of public schooling for all children, with advanced education for a select few. -
Webster Published Blackspeller
It was a textbook designed to teach students about the United States and its inhabitants. -
Horace Mann found a system built on inequity.
Mann visited 1,000 schools over the course of six years and wrote detailed reports on their physical condition. -
End to Boston's public schools segregation
A group of nearly 90 African-Americans drew up a petition to the Boston school committee which resulted in the end to the city public schools segregation. -
John Hughes named Archbishop of New York
he used his considerable power to help create a national system of Catholic schools. -
Steel Mill Immigrants
A city sprang up almost overnight as immigrants flocked to Gary, looking for work. To assimilate these new arrivals, town leaders hired William A. Wirt as superintendent of schools. He designed lavish, modern buildings that served all grades and a curriculum that kept students in motion. -
Gary Plan Attacked
Gary plan was into action in thirty New York schools. But that move embroiled the school system and the city in a violent controversy. Democratic opponent John Hylan attacked the Gary plan as a plot to turn out cheap labor for large corporations. -
Allied Victory Results in School
Chicago school children destroyed all their textbooks that were written in German. 35 states required instruction in English only and history courses that celebrated American heroes. -
IQ Test & Discrimination
2/3 of the Mexican-American students in Los Angeles were classified as slow learners and even mentally retarded on the basis of IQ tests given as early as kindergarten. -
NCAAP enlisted 13 black parents in Topeka
They advised the parents to try to enroll their children in white schools near their homes. -
South Denied Integration
Parents and politicians vowed that white children would never sit in class next to black children, and that the federal government had no right to interfere with local schools. -
Chief Justice Earl Warren Decision
Chief Justice Earl Warren announced the court's unanimous decision. It is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. -
Little Rock Integration
The governor of Arkansas called out the National Guard, rather than allow nine black teenagers to integrate Little Rock's Central High School. -
National Defense Education Act
For the first time, massive amounts of federal money, over $100 million yearly, were sent to aid public education. Overnight, the school's changed. -
Choose a School
Educators required that all junior high students choose a school, whether alternative or regular. Any school that was failing would be shut down and reorganized, much like a failing business. -
New Champion, LBJ
The nation's public school children gained a new champion, a former schoolteacher, now President named Lyndon Johnson. -
Choice Experiment Begun
Educators in East Harlem had asked some of the district's best teachers to create small alternative public schools within existing buildings. -
New York Enrollment
New York began allowing students to seek enrollment anywhere in the city. Parents fed up with the quality of education in New York public schools can now take their children out of local classrooms and place them in schools of their choice. -
Vouchers
Low income students in Cleveland Ohio became the first in the nation to use vouchers to attend religious schools. -
Charter Schools in Arizona
EAI turned away from large urban school systems, and in 1997 signed a contract with the state of Arizona to run a dozen small charter schools.