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First State Board of Education Created
Horace Mann was the first secretary of education in Massachusetts. He led the state toward a universal, free, and nonsectarian education. The State Board of Education was to investigate conditions, report facts, expose defects, and make recommendations. As the years have passed, Boards have been modified but the founding principles remains. -
Subject Centered Education
Henry Barnard was elected as the secretary for the Board of Educations for Massachusetts. He created common standards for buildings, teachers, attendance, and textbooks. He showed teachers how and what to teach. He edited his American Journal of Education to include recent practices. This contributed to the era known at subject centered education where recitation and memorization were core techniques. Reading, writing, and math were the subjects most schools focused on. -
Student Centered Education
American psychologist G. Stanley Hall began to study children's minds just after he earned his doctorate in psychology in 1878. His scientific observation of children brought credibility to the idea of changing the focus of education from the subject to the student. This led to a significant change in curriculum and instruction with a focus on student's needs and not subject memorization. -
Brown v. Board of Education
Parents in Topeka, Kansas filed a suit on behalf of African American children claiming that segregated public schools were not equal and could not be made equal therefore depriving children of equal protection. The supreme court agreed and was met with resistance initially. This did lead to the eventual integration of schools. Integration didn't reach it's height in the South until the 1970s and 1980s. -
No Child Left Behind
This is the federal governments first attempt to hold states, districts, and schools accountable to create an equal opportunity for low-income, minority, English language learners, and students with disabilities. It's a public accountability system to have students pass standardized at benchmark points in their education in math, science, and language arts.
