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First American Public School
Boston Latin School was founded and is both the first public school and oldest existing school in the United States. -
Ideas of formal assessment of student achievement begin
American educators begin articulating ideas that would soon be translated into the formal assessment of student achievement. -
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Formal written texts begin
establishes several main currents in the history of American educational testing including formal written testing begins to replace oral examinations administered by teachers and schools at roughly the same time as schools changed their mission from servicing the elite to educating the masses -
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Development of tools that measure mental ability begin
the development and administration of a range of new testing instruments from measuring mental ability to attempting to assess how well students were prepared for college brought to the forefront several critical issues related not only to testing but to the broader goals of American education -
Common entrance exams used by colleges and schools
Harvard President Charles William Eliot proposes a cooperative system of common entrance examinations that would be acceptable to colleges and professional schools throughout the country, in lieu of the separate examinations given by each school. -
College Entrance Examination Board is established
College Entrance Examination Board is established and in 1901, the first examinations were administered around the country in nine subjects. -
Alfred Binet creates first IQ test
French psychologist Alfred Binet begins developing a standardized test of intelligence, work that would eventually be incorporated into a version of the modern IQ test, dubbed the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test. -
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Standardized tests in arithmetic, handwriting, spelling, drawing, reading, and language ability
Created by Edward Thorndike and his students at Columbia University -
Beginning of large scale individual intellignece testing
Stanford Professor Lewis Terman marks the beginning of large-scale individual intelligence testing in characteristics of the Binet-Simon tradition. -
Everyone begins making their own standardized tests
there are well over 100 standardized tests, developed by different researchers to measure achievement in the principal elementary and secondary school subjects. -
First SAT test are administered
the first SAT tests are administered. Founded as the Scholastic Aptitude Test by the College Board, a nonprofit group of universities and other educational organizations. The original test lasted 90 minutes and consisted of 315 questions testing knowledge of vocabulary and basic math and even including an early iteration of the famed fill-in-the-blank analogies -
First major statewide testing program
the University of Iowa initiates the first major statewide testing program for high school students, directed by E.F. Lindquist. -
Elementary and Secondary Education Act
Signed into law in 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was designed to improve resources for disadvantaged students. Title I, the largest part of ESEA's approximately $1 billion budget, specifically targeted children from low-income families. In the 1970s, about 94 percent of school districts received money under ESEA. -
Education Improvement Act
Tennessee's Education Improvement Act of 1992 (EIA), a landmark education reform, created a new state funding formula. The Basic Education Program (BEP) was designed to direct more state funding to districts with less ability to raise local revenue. -
No Child Left Behind Act
No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the 2001 reauthorization of ESEA, mandated that all students test as proficient in reading and math by 2014. The law required yearly testing in these two subjects for grades 3-8, and once in high school. Schools whose test scores did not adequately improve were identified by the state for additional assistance. If schools continued to not meet progress requirements, federal law required the state to take further corrective action. -
First to the Top Act
Under First to the Top, Tennessee created the Achievement School District, which has five years to move its schools from the bottom five percent to the top 25 percent in student achievement. The new law also based 50 percent of teachers' evaluations on student achievement and growth. -
Every Student Succeeds Act
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), passed in December 2015, is the most recent reauthorization of ESEA and NCLB.
With the passage of ESSA, state waivers will become void in August 2016. While ESSA maintains much of NCLB's original framework, the new law gives more flexibility to states and school districts.