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The General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony decrees that every town of fifty families should have an elementary school and that every town of 100 families should have a Latin school. The goal was to ensure that Puritan children learn to read the Bible and receive basic information about their Calvinist religion.
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Massachusetts passes a law making all grades of public school open to all students free of charge. They continued on to form the first Board of Education in 1837, led by Horace Mann, making education required by law.
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Board of National Popular Education, formed by Catharine Beecher and William Slade, ran from 1848-1856. It recruited young women as teachers and sent them west to "civilize" the frontier; places that were destitute of them.
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Schools face low attendance and staffing when many young men enlist or are drafted in World War II.
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The National School Lunch Program is created to provide low-cost or free school lunches to students through subsidies.
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The U.S. Supreme Court rules that state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, stating, "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal," and therefore violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The integration was not immediate. In Brown II (1955), they required all schools in the U.S. to integrate, but did not specify a time frame when it needed to be done. It took many years in some states to comply.
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This act prohibited discrimination against students in school based on their race, color, sex, or national origin.
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The main goal of this law was to improve educational equality for students from lower-income families by providing federal funds to school districts serving poor students.
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This act provides federal funds to encourage programs for students who don't speak English when they arrive in school.
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This amendment says that no one can be excluded from any school program on the basis of sex.
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The U.S. Supreme Court in Lau v. Nichols rules that schools must attend to the needs of students who do not speak English. Because of this, programs for ELL are no longer voluntary.
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U.S. Congress passes Public Law 94-142, Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA), which requires a "free appropriate public education" for every child in the U.S. no matter their disability.
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The Box Tops for Education program is created by General Mills, helping schools earn money by collecting coupons from food packaging.
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This act made schools accountable in regards to standardized testing and teacher accountability. This act put a lot of pressures on public schools to meet their requirements in an effort to not lose their accreditation.
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The North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL) is established as a nonprofit organization dedicated to the enhancement of K–12 online learning.
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This U.S. law promotes accountability for results, uses proven practices and materials, provides more flexibility, enhances parent involvement, and reduces paperwork burdens for teacher, state and local school districts. It mandates equality, accountability, and excellence in education for children with disabilities.
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The Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful Act is a California legislature that passed an amendment to the Education Code. It included sexual orientation, prohibited discrimination based on disability or religion, categories not previously fully protected in civil rights laws. This kept schools from sponsoring negative activities about or teaching students about in an adverse way.