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Ana Mercado

EDU 201 - 2002

29 September 2021

Development of Education in America

1600’s

📍1635: First Free School

The First “free school” in Virginia opens.

📍1636: Harvard College

The first higher education institution is established.

📍1638: First Printing Press

The first printing press in American Colonies was set up at Harvard College.

📍1638: Hartford Public High School

Hartford Public High School opens in Hartford Connecticut. It is "the second oldest secondary

school in the United States.

📍1642: First Compulsory Education Law

The law stated that parents and or guardians of children are required to provide them with basic

education (reading, writing, etc) and if not provided the state claims authority to take custody so

they can be taught.

📍1647: First American Law Requiring Schools

Towns are required to hire one reading and writing teacher for each 50 families and towns with

over 100 families are required to form a Latin grammar school to prepare children to be admitted
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to Harvard College.

📍1647: Dame Schools

In this year, Dame schools began. It was an early combination of day care and schooling. These

schools slowly show how effective women can be in the education field and raise the level of

education for girls.

📍1690: New England Primer

The first New England Primer is printed in Boston. This later on becomes the most widely-used

school book.

📍1693: College of William and Mary

The College of William and Mary is established in Virginia. It is the second college to open in

colonial America and has the distinction of being Thomas Jefferson's college.

📍1698: Publicly Supported Library

The first publicly supported library in the United States was established this year. Later on in two

years, the General Assembly of South Carolina passes the first public library law.

1700’s

📍1727: Ursuline Academy of New Orleans

A Catholic school for girls sponsored by Sisters of the Order of Saint Ursula.

📍1751: English Academy

Benjamin Franklin helps establish the first English Academy in Philadelphia. It has a curriculum

that is both classical and modern. It includes courses in history, geography, navigation,

surveying, and so forth. This academy is now known as University of Pennsylvania.

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📍1752: St. Matthew

St. Matthew Lutheran School, one of the first Lutheran "parish schools" in North America, was

founded in New York City by Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, after whom Muhlenberg College in

Allentown Pennsylvania is named.

📍1779: Two-Track Education System

Thomas Jefferson proposed a two-track educational system, with different tracks in his words for

"the laboring and the learned." Scholarship would allow a very few of the laboring class to

advance, Jefferson says, by "raking a few geniuses from the rubbish."

📍1783: Grammatical Institute of the English Language

Noah Webster writes A Grammatical Institute of the English Language , consisting of three

volumes: a spelling book, a grammar book, and a reader. They have become very widely used

throughout the United States.

📍1785: University of Georgia

The University of Georgia becomes "America's first state-chartered university."

📍1787: The Young Ladies Academy

The Young Lady Academy opened in Philadelphia and became the first academy for girls in the

original thirteen colonies/states.

📍1789: University of North Carolina

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is chartered by the North Carolina General

Assembly. It is the only public university to award degrees in the 18th century.

📍1790: New Schools Established

Schools for African Americans were established in the late 1700’s.
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📍1790: Free Public Education

Pennsylvania state constitution calls for free public education but only for poor children. It is

expected that rich people will pay for their children's schooling.

📍1791: Tenth Amendment

Individual states take control of education when the Tenth Amendment to the United States

Constitution is ratified.

1800’s

📍1801: Blackboard
James Pillans invented the modern Blackboard.

📍1817: Connecticut Asylum

The Connecticut Asylum at Hartford for the Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons opens. It is

the first permanent school for the deaf in the United States.

📍1821: Boston English High School

One of the first public high schools in the United States opens up.

📍1827: Massachusetts New Law

The state of Massachusetts passes a law requiring towns of more than 500 families to have a

public highschool open to all students.

📍1829: New England Asylum for the Blind

The New England Asylum for the Blind is now open and becomes the first school in the United

States for children with visual disabilities.

📍1837: The African Institute

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The African Institute was established and became one of the oldest institutions of higher learning

for African Americans.

📍1837: Oberlin College

Oberlin College admits its first group of women and became the first college in the United States

to become coeducational.

📍1848: Experimental School

Samuel Gridley Howe helps establish the Experimental School for Teaching and Training Idiotic

Children.

📍1853: Training School for Feeble-Minded Children

Pennsylvania begins funding this school which is a private school for children with intellectual

disabilities.

📍1854: Boston Public Library

The Boston Public Library opens to the public, and it is known as the first free municipal library

in the United States.

📍1857: NTA
The National Teachers Association (National Education Association) is founded by forty-three

educators in Philadelphia.

📍1867: Department of Education

The Department of Education is created in order to help states establish effective school systems.

📍1869: Day School

Boston created the first public day school for the deaf.

📍1876: Dewey Decimal System

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This system is developed and published. The DDC is still the world's most widely-used library

classification system.

📍1885: Morris-Brown College

It is the first educational institution in Georgia under sole African-American patronage.

📍1892: Committee of Ten

Recommendation of college-oriented high school curriculum by the Committee of Ten.

1900’s

📍1901: Joliet Junior College

The first public community college in the United States.

📍1905: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

Encouraged the adoption of a standard system for equating “seat time”, the amount of time spent

in a classroom, to highschool credits. It is still in use today, and is now known as the Carnegie

Unit.

📍1909: Indianola Junior High School

Columbus Ohio School Board establishes the creation of junior high schools. Indianola Junior

High School opens that fall and becomes the first junior high school in the U.S.

📍1919: PEA
The Progressive Education Association was founded. Their goal is to reform American

Education.

📍1919: Transportation
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All states have laws providing funds for transporting children to school.

📍1926: SAT
The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is first administered. It is based on the Army Alpha test.

📍1946: School Lunch Act

The need for a permanent legislative basis for a school lunch program, the 79th Congress

approves of the National School Lunch Act.

📍1963: Learning Disabilities Association of America.

Samuel A. Kirk uses the term "learning disability" at a Chicago conference on children with

perceptual disorders. The term sticks, and in 1964, the Association for Children with Learning

Disabilities (Learning Disabilities Association of America) was formed.

📍1965: Head Start

Project Head Start, a preschool education program for children from low-income families. The

program continues to this day as the longest-running anti-poverty program in the U.S.

📍1989: University of Phoenix

First online campus to offer online bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

📍1990: ADA
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) becomes law. It prohibits discrimination against

those with disabilities in all areas, including education.

📍1994: IASA
The Improving America's Schools Act (IASA) was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. It

includes reforms for increased funding for bilingual and immigrant education and provisions for

public charter schools, drop-out prevention, and educational technology.

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📍1998: Higher Education Act

The Higher Education Act is amended and reauthorized requiring institutions and states to

produce "report cards" about teacher education.

2000’s

📍2001: Connections Academy

Established with providing better quality education and online education to K-12 students

nationwide.

📍2001: No Child Left Behind Act

The law (replaces the Bilingual Education Act of 1968), mandates high-stakes student testing,

holds schools accountable for student achievement levels, and provides penalties for schools that

do not make adequate yearly progress toward meeting the goals of NCLB.

📍2002: NAREA
It was formally launched as an organization. Its goals include promoting the rights of young

children and providing information about the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood

education.

📍2003: iNACOL
The International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL), a non-profit organization

dedicated to enhancing K-12 online education, is "launched as a formal corporate entity."

📍2007: AAMR
American Association on Mental Retardation (AAMR) became the American Association on
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Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD), joining the trend toward use of the term

intellectual disability in place of mental retardation.

📍2008: HEOA
The Higher Education Opportunity Act is passed into law. It reauthorizes an amended version of

the Higher Education Act and includes major changes in student loan eligibility for people with

cognitive disabilities as well as other changes to federal financial aid programs

📍2009: Common Core

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is launched.

📍2009: ARRA
The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 provides more than 90-billion dollars for

education, nearly half of which goes to local school districts to prevent layoffs and for school

modernization and repair.

📍2013: Virtual Schools

State virtual schools exist between the twenty-five states by the beginning of the 2013-2014

school year.

📍2015: ESSA
The U.S. Senate approves of the Every Student Succeeds Act or known as ESSA. This act ends

up replacing No Child Left Behind.

Throughout the entire development of education in America, several exceptional advancements

and acts created today’s educational system. For starters, we can look back upon the first free school that

opened in 1635. Looking at the new developments and changes created we can see how much we have

advanced. We can see programs and organizations like Head Start (1965). Project Head Start, a preschool
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education program for children from low-income families. Head Start programs support children's growth

in a positive learning environment through a variety of services. They provide services to more than a

million children every year, in every U.S. state and territory. As well as even more recent developments,

AAMR, American Association on Mental Retardation. This organization became the American

Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD), joining the trend toward the use of

the term intellectual disability in place of mental retardation. It is the oldest and largest interdisciplinary

organization of professionals and others concerned about intellectual and developmental disabilities. We

have many new developments that are occurring even today, and many that still affect us to this day.
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Works Cited

“1600's Education.” Education In Early America,

https://educationinearlyamerica.weebly.com/1600s-education.html.

“American Educational History: A Hypertext Timeline.” American Educational History

Timeline, http://www.eds-resources.com/educationhistorytimeline.html.

“Historical Timeline of Public Education in the US.” Race Forward, 8 Oct. 2015,

https://www.raceforward.org/research/reports/historical-timeline-public-education-us.

“U.S. Education History: Timeline of Education Facts.” Connections Academy,

https://www.connectionsacademy.com/support/resources/article/timeline-of-education-his

tory.