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The Puritans believed that it was everyone's God-given right to have an education. This law made forced every town of 50 or more people to institute a school with the proper number of teachers for its students. Anyone who did not abide by this would be subject to a fine. This was the first public school law in North America.
(https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2016/08/ob/deludersatan.pdf) -
Thomas Jefferson writes and presents a bill to the Virginia House of Delegates numerous times. Jefferson wanted to establish a strong public education; in the proposal, he crafts the three "R's": Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic. The Bill would later be passed in 1796 as a national law that established public education.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-02-02-0132-0004-0079 -
First called the "African Institute," Cheyney University was the first higher education institution for black students. It helped kickstart the movement of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) in the U.S.
https://cheyney.edu/for-parents/history-traditions/ -
Created under the Johnson Administration, the Department of Education was a subset of the Executive Branch that's function was to improve the quality of public education nationally. Even though its position in the government has changed, its role has stayed the same: it streamlines information to teachers and schools about what is best for the nation's students.
https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/role.html -
Melvil Dewey establishes and patents the Dewey Decimal System which would become the world's leading method for classification of library books.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bV_sI8XQdI -
One of the few court cases that the supreme court has acknowledged that its ruling was wrong. This ruling allowed for states to segregate by race stating that segregation itself did not constitute an illegal act. The term "Separate but Equal" was coined as a result of this blunder.
https://www.oyez.org/cases/1850-1900/163us537 -
John Scopes, a science teacher from Tennessee, went against state law by teaching Darwin's Theory of Evolution. The trial became much more than just the concept of human origin; it was about a teacher's right to freedom of expression and thought. The court found him guilty of breaking the law, but the decision was reversed two years later.
Video of the Trial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJoZrJknJJE -
During WW1, Robert Yerkes was given permission to administer an IQ test to all Army members-The Army Alpha. His young assistant, Carl Brigham, took this test and made it more difficult as a way for colleges to separate their incoming freshman by intelligence levels; this was the birth of the SAT. It was first administered to several thousand incoming college freshmen in 1926.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/where/history.html -
More than 50 years after Plessy v Ferguson, the Supreme Court had its chance to finally correct the injustice that it had enacted upon the black population by ruling whether or not segregating schools was constitutional. In a unanimous decision, the court ruled that this segregation was in direct conflict with the 14th Amendment. It also commented that "Separate but Equal" is inherently unconstitutional.
https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/347us483 -
President Reagan releases one of the most detrimental reports about the education system within the last century, citing that our education is mediocre at best and is failing our children.
Audio of his speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCIKmgFULTg
Full Document: https://edreform.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/A_Nation_At_Risk_1983.pdf
