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First Public School on America grounds
On April 23, 1635, the first public school in what would become the United States was established in Boston, Massachusetts. Known as the Boston Latin School, this boys-only public secondary school was led by schoolmaster Philemon Pormont, a Puritan settler. -
First College in America
Harvard University is the oldest college in the entire country — it dates back to 1636. The school was named after a young minister by the name of John Harvard, who, according to the university, left his library and half of his estate to the institution upon his death in 1638. -
First public school of the United States
The first public normal school in the United States was founded shortly thereafter in 1839 in Lexington, Massachusetts. Both public and private “normals” initially offered a two-year course beyond the secondary level, but by the twentieth century, teacher-training programs required a minimum of four years. -
First African American to attend school
In April of 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War, Susan Clark – a 12-year-old girl from Muscatine, Iowa – became the first Black child to attend an integrated school because of a court order. -
Measurement Movement
The movement started in 1905 by Alfred Binet, and with the help of Theodore Simon. The measurement movement was originally found to discover if a human had a retardation. Later, it transformed into measuring the intelligence of each person's brain. -
Brown v Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a landmark 1954 Supreme Court case in which the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. -
First desegregated school
The first institutions to integrate would be the high schools, beginning in September 1957. Among these was Little Rock Central High School, which opened in 1927 and was originally called Little Rock Senior High School. -
Elementary and secondary education act
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965, a key component of President Johnson's War on Poverty, was designed to aid low-income students and to combat racial segregation in schools. -
IDEA
It was originally known as the Education of Handicapped Children Act, passed in 1975. In 1990, amendments to the law were passed, effectively changing the name to IDEA. In 1997 and again in 2004, additional amendments were passed to ensure equal access to education. -
No Child left behind
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which passed Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support in 2001 and was signed into law by President George W. Bush on Jan. 8, 2002, is the name for the most recent update to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.