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Noah Webster
Noah Webster was known as the school master of America. He thought that Americans should learn National Ideals in the classroom rather than things that were in the British textbooks. So he eliminated all British textbooks from classrooms and began to write the Blue Back Speller published in 1783, which later became known as Webster's Dictionary. -
Thomas Jefferson
In 1783, Thomas Jefferson drafted a proposal that all children should receive 3 years of required education because he believed that public education was "essential to democracy". -
Great School debates of 1840
Bishop John Hughes started a protest against teaching Irish Catholic children that they were not worth anything, or were from a bad country. The protest spread, and over 20,000 Irish Catholic children were not attending schools. So principals were ordered to remove the passages from textbooks. This eventually led to all religious denomnations and races of people to want hurtful comments about them removed from textbooks as well. This led to the first separation of church and state. -
Segregation of Massachusttes schools
Benjamin Roberts decided that he wanted to send his daughter Sarah to a white school closer to his home. He tried 6 schools and none of them would allow Sarah to attend. He took this to the supreme court of Massachusttes in Roberts vs. Boston. The court ruled in favor of Boston. He later took it to the supreme court under Plessy vs. Fergusson, and they found that separate but equal was not constitutional and ruled that segregation must happen in Massachusttes schools. -
John Dewey
John Dewey is known as the father of progressive education. In his book "The School and Society", he says that we should address the needs of the whole child in learning. Not just forcing knowledge, but allowing them to explore and learn in different ways. This led to what we know as the Progressive School -
First Progressive School/Gary Plan
Gary Indiana started to implement the ideals of John Dewey in there schools. Superintendent Wirt implemented that all school equipment be used all day. Schools had academic classrooms, but also had gyms, auditoriums, art classes, and vocational classes. This was a great thing, but some people saw it as an attempt to train children to work and play, but not to learn. So they tried all they could to shut it down. -
Life Adjustment Education
Life adjustment education was implemented beginning in the 1940's and is still carried on in some forms today. This was created to make school relevant to every day life. They would teach children hygiene,dating tips, how to handle family problems, and even sex education. This was okay for a while, but then people began to say that school was more social education than academic education. -
Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeca, Kansas
This cases was monumental in the race for desegregation. Brown was asked to go to a white school. When education was denied, they took the case to the supreme court using Brown as the defendant, but representing all children facing this. The court ruled in favor of Brown, overturning the ruling of Plessy vs Fergusson and declaring segregation of all schools. This was announced by Bill Warren, chief justice of the supreme court at the time. -
Sputnik
When Sputnik was launched into space, Americans became terrified! We felt like we were falling behind in staying ahead. This time period began the Space Race. Federal money was being pumped into schools to create better math and science classes. They called this the National Defense Education Act. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 declared that anything federally funded could no longer be segregated in any way. This ruling meant that even Mexican Americans and African Americans as well as other races were to be given the same rights in every aspect of life, not just education. -
Julian Nava
Julian Nova was the first Hispanic to sit on the school board in Los Angeles. He was a ambassador to Mexico under president Carter, and he is most famous for leading the L.A Walkout. This was in protest to pressure schools to make changes to tests that were making it hard for Latinos and other races to take because they were so Americanized. The protest spread like wildfire, and they got the results that they wanted. -
Crystal City Walkout
Mexican American children were tired of not being allowed to participate in school activities, so they decided to go to the school board. The School board adjourned before they would even here the case. So the next step was the Walkout. They started small, but eventually 2,000 high school aged Mexican American students were out of school. Within two years of the walkot, they had representation on the school board to make sure that there opinions were heard. -
Title IX
Title IX created equal opportunity in schools as well as the work force for women. This was a huge deal, becuase up until the point, women were struggling to have their opinions heard. Title IX ruled against descrimination against race, gender or ethnicity. -
Choice and Competition
Schools began to have higher competition to get in because people were given more of a choice on where there child could attend school. There were more options, but some schools were better than others so this led to higher competition to get into the schools. -
A Nation At Risk
This was President Reagan's way of letting everyone know that American education was at risk. We were in a very critical area in our Nation's schools, and something had to be done about it. -
Vouchers
Vouchers were put into place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. These were used for private schools to create more of an equal opportunity for students who couldnt afford the tuition, but wanted to attend private schools.
