History of Education Timeline
Stephanie Felix
Introduction to Elementary Education 201
History of Education Timeline
History of Education Timeline
1620 to 1750:
- 1620: Colonial Schools throughout the 13 colonies
- New England colonies (Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island)
were mostly Protestants
- Middle Colonies (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware) were religious
tolerants
- Southern colonies (Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia) had
no specific religion, but were mostly focused on producing cash crops
- Colonial schools put emphasis on the teaching and learning of religion
- Dame schools put emphasis on teaching children how to read and write
- Dame schools run like private elementary schools run by widows or housewives in their
own homes
- taught children the alphabet, basic elements of reading, and religious subjects
- used the horn book (copy of the alphabet covered by a thin sheet made of cow horn)
** Curriculum focus: The primary objective of schools in the colonial era was to teach young
children how to read and write, in hopes these children would read the Bible and receive
salvation and eternity in heaven.
- 1636: Latin Grammar Schools
- emphasized the teaching and learning of Latin
- taught students how to use Latin
- 1636: Harvard College was established
- Harvard opened as a learning institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts on September 8
- Harvard was the first learning institution in America
- 1647: Massachusetts Law
- the Old Deluder Satan Act passed in Massachusetts in 1647 required towns to take
responsibility in educating the children
- education became more of a social responsibility
- 1704: Elias Neau created a school in New York for children of slaves
- opened a school for Blacks in New York City
- 1745: Arithmetic was introduced into schools
- first time proficiency in arithmetic was required in American schools
1750 to 1820:
- 1751: Philadelphia Academy opened
- designed and promoted by Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
- consisted of English and Latin schools
- only children whose parents could afford to pay the high tuition were admitted
- Franklin believed school curriculum should include: geography, writing, drawing,
science, composition, agriculture, gardening, accounting, and mechanics
- Academies during this time were largely privately controlled and financed
- 1770: Philadelphia African Schools
- founded by Anthony Benezet
- schools for African Americans were started by the Quakers after the abolition of slavery
- 1776: Issued the Declaration of Independence on July 4
- 1792: Female Academy opened in Litchfield, Connecticut
- initiated by Sarah Pierce (1767-1852) who taught her first classes in her home on her
dining room table
- female seminaries were established to train women for higher education and public
service outside the household
- Pierce believed girls should be taught the same subjects as men
- 1824: University of Virginia
- founded by Thomas Jefferson
- Jefferson believed that higher education schools’ curriculum should be based on
grammar, Greek, Latin, geography, and advanced arithmetic
1820 to 1865:
- 1820: First state-supported high school was established
- Boston English Classical School opened in Massachusetts
- the school was renamed to “English High School” in 1824
- 1837: Horace Mann (1769-1859) accepted a position as Secretary of the Massachusetts State
Board of Education
- Mann was a lawyer and Massachusetts senator
- founded and edited “The Common School Journal”
- proposed that teachers need more than a high school education
- 1839: first public normal school opened in Lexington, Massachusetts on July 3, 1839
- curriculum of a “normal” school consisted of general knowledge courses plus courses in
pedagogy of teaching
- 1848: Mann resigned as secretary
- 1849: Electa Lincoln Walton (1824-1908) became the head administrator of the public school
- she was the first woman to ever administer a state normal school
- she was well-qualified since she was an 1843 graduate from a normal school
- 1850’s: Reverend William Holmes McGuffey (1800-1873) impacted what children learned at
new schools
- McGuffey readers taught children and adults how to read stories such as “The Wolf”
and “A Kind Brother”
- 1862: Morrill Land Grant was sponsored by Congressman Justin S. Morill of Vermont
- this act provided states with federal land they could sell or rent in order to raise funds
for the establishment of colleges of agriculture and mechanical arts
- 1868: Horace Mann became the “champion of the common school movement”
- Mann advocated and paved the road for free public, locally controlled schools
- Mann strongly believed in the importance to make education free so that it is equal and
accessible to all
1865 to 1920:
- 1837: First kindergarten was founded
- Freidrich Froebel (1782-1852) was a German educator who founded the kindergarten,
or “a garden where children grow”
- focus of curriculum was to encourage motor development through games, stories,
music, and language
- children were no longer being treated as young adults, but instead as children
- 1855: First German-language kindergarten opened up in the United States
- Margarethe Schurz (1833-1876) opened up the first kindergarten in the comfort of her
home in Watertown, Wisconsin
- only spoke German
- 1860: First English-language kindergarten was established
- Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (1804-1894) was an American educator who opened the first
formal English- language kindergarten in Boston, Massachusetts
- 1865: Schooling for African Americans
- Freedmen's Bureau is where Congress established this bureau to provide the
“foundation for education” for slaves
- consisted of reading, writing, and instructional schools that operated
days, nights and on Sundays
- 1873: First public kindergarten was founded
- Susan Blow (1843-1916) was an American educator and advocate of German ideas
- Blow initiated the first successful public kindergarten in the U.S.became known as the
“Mother of Kindergarten”
- 1881: Tuskegee Institution
- Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) was an African-American leader who founded the
Tuskegee Institute
- Purpose of the institute was to train African-Americans in agriculture and industry, and
also in the art of teaching
- 1892: Committee on Secondary School Studies was appointed by the National Education
Association
- 1892-1893: Committee of 10 focused on Latin, Greek, English, modern language, math,
physics, astronomy, chemistry, natural history, government and geography
- 1893: National Education appropriated money for the Committee of Ten to hold nine
conferences that focussed on subjects being taught in high schools from 1872 to 1893
- 1893: Committee of Fifteen is formed
- purpose of the committee is to examine elementary curriculum
- stressed that curriculum should be focused on the five basic subjects
- 1895: introduced Latin, modern language and algebra into elementary curriculum
- curriculum was organized around grammar, literature, arithmetic, geography, and
history
- 1909: Engineer Fredrick W. Taylor founded the scientific management theory
- analyzed workflow and methodized relationship between workers and managers
- 1909: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded
- William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963) was an African American activist that
helped found the NAACP
- Du Bois graduated from his high school as valedictorian, and he was the first African
American to obtain a PhD
- 1913: Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education was appointed to lay out a
new framework for secondary education
- the purpose was to help better prepare students to enter high school by studying the
high school to college relationships
- 1918: curriculum was designed to accommodate individuals
1920 to 1945:
- 1919: Progressive Movement
- focused on changing social reform to improve the quality of American life
- 1919: Association for the Advancement of Progressive Education was founded
- the goal of the Progressive Education Association was to spread progressive education
to public schools across the United States
- teachers in progressive schools acted as guides rather than transmitters because they
engaged students in activities that related to their interests
- Proogressive education believed “all was good in education”
- 1919: John Dewey co founded The New School for Social Research
- John Dewey (1859-1952) established a progressive, experimental Laboratory School
- 1920s: Montessori Method
- Maria Montessori (1870-1952) opened up the first Montessori school in 1907
- the aim of the Montessori Method was to make independence as the aim of education,
and to make teachers students’ observers
- Montessori Method stresses individualism of students: the child’s independence and
freedom of choice in their movements and activities
- she trained teachers to understand that students’ need to pass through “sensitive
periods” in order to experience intellectual, social, and moral awakenings
- Montessori education and schools spread in the U.S. during the 1920s
-1923: Mary McLeod Bethune was president of Daytona Normal School
- Bethune (1875-1955) founded the Daytona Normal and Industrial School for training
Negro girls in Daytona Beach, Florida
- 1924: Native Americans were granted U.S. citizenship
- Indeguneous people were provided few successful educational programs
- 1941: Lanham Act
- the federal government passed the Lanham Act as their response to women having a
role in the war, and leaving their children behind
- Lanham Act established childcare centers and provided services for all children whose
parents worked in war production areas
- 1944: G.I. Bill of Right
- signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt on June 22, 1944
- provided millions of veterans with tuition payments for tuition, books, and room and
board at colleges/ universities
- encouraged veterans to further their education free of cost to them in return for fighting
for our country during war
1945 to 2000:
- 1954: Brown v. Board of Education
- Supreme Court ruling declared that the segregation of schools was unconstitutional
- 1957: Soviet Union Sputnik was launched
- the launch of Sputnik on October 4, 1957 sparked American’s thirst for more education
about math and science
- sparked the need for science, mathematics, and foreign language to be taught in schools
nationwide
- 1958: National Defense Act of 1958
- STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) was given more funds
and became the greater focus of schools
- U.S. wanted to develop more technology to explore space and win the Space Race
- 1960s: Rise in public school enrollments
- public school enrollments increased by 10 million
- 1970s: Back to Basics movement
- emphasis in education shifted back to reading, writing, mathematics and oral
communication
-1980s: rigorous core curriculum advocated at all levels in order to increase standards and to
ensure quality education
- Carnegie Council on adolescent development recommended the creation of core
academic programs for middle level students
- 1994: Goals 2000: Educate America Act was signed into law on March 31, 1994
- President Bill Clinton unveils Goals 2000, the national educational goals that
identified educational goals for the 21st century
- established an underlying system to pinpoint academic standards, measure student
progress, and to provide the support that students may need to help meet the standards
- this act pledged to provide states the adequate resources needed to help students to
reach the predetermined academic standards
- 1996: Bill Clinton launches the President’s Educational Technology Initiative
- he believes that students should enter the workforce technologically literate in the
2000s, and in order to achieve this goal, schools need to be equipped with more
Technology
- 1996: President Clinton introduced the Technology Literacy Challenge Fund (TLCF)
- Bill Clinton set aside 2 million dollars to ensure that every child in every school has
access to technology to reach Goals 2000
- 2000: U.S. President Bill Clinton signed the Educational Excellence for All Children Act into
law during his second presidential term
- the Educational Excellence Act reauthorized the Elementary Secondary Education Act
- Clinnton believed every citizen deserved high quality education
2000 to Present:
- 2002: U.S. President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act
- reathourized the Elementary Secondary Education Act
- law that held schools accountable for individual student achievement
- 2009: National Governors Association and Council of Chief State Officers organized the
Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI)
- 2010: President Obama made changes to the No Child Left Behind Act and releases A
Blueprint for Reform
- Race to the Top is part of the Blueprint
- Race to the Top was established as a competitive grant to reward districts for
innovations in their K-12 education
- Common Core State Standards for K-12 are released
- 2011: Congress fails to act on the call to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education
Act (ESEA)
- states can now voluntarily seek “ESEA flexibility”
- ESEA flexibility is the opportunity for states to request waivers to exempt them from
some of the provisions of the No Child Left Behind law that are not working for them
until Congress passes a law that fixes No Child Left Behind Act
- in order to seek relief from the NCLB, states need to propose a better plan that will
adequately prepare their students for higher education
- 2012: Race to the Top expanded into a competition for school districts nationwide
- 55 districts received a total of $400 million
- by the next year, $4 billion in the Race to the Top funds were awarded to 19 states
- 2013: 45 U.S. states submit plans for ESEA flexibility
- only 42 states were approved for waivers
- 2014: Congress proposed that all students will leave high school “college or career ready”
- 2015: States collaborate to develop common assessments aligned to Common Core Standards
Three general patterns of trends in U.S. education established were: Americanization,
Democratization, and Professionalism.
- Americanization:
- goal was to change European schools and curriculum
- changed English Language Art books and curriculum
- believed education should be based on life, growth, and forms of art
- believed education was related to success in society
- taught education related to citizenship and democracy
- Democratization:
- implemented free public funded education
- enforced preservation of state rights
- applied protection of students’ and teachers’ rights
- educational reform reflects the two party system
- established educational opportunities for American minorities
- Professionalism:
- viewed teaching as a profession and occupation
- saw a rise in the science for management of schools
- standards for teaching rose
- higher status and salaries for teachers
