-
The Mayflower arrives at Cape Cod
The mayflower was home for 66 days to Pilgrims brave or desperate enough to go on the voyage. They later established the Plymouth Colony. Many of the Pilgrims are Puritans who had fled religious persecution in England. Their religious views come to dominate education in the New England colonies. -
The first "free school" in Virginia opens
It was first founded as the Syms School and became the frontrunner in education during the colonial period. However, education in the Southern colonies is more typically provided at home by parents or tutors. -
Two-track Education System
Proposed by Thomas Jefferson, it came with different tracks for "the laboring and the learned." With scholarships, a select few from the "laboring" could advance alongside the "learned". -
The Constitutional Convention assembles in Philadelphia
Later that year, the constitution is endorsed by the Confederation Congress (the body that governed from 1781 until the ratification of the U.S. Constitution) and sent to state legislatures for ratification. The document does not include the words education or school. -
The Bill of Rights is passed by the first Congress of the new United States
No mention is made of education in any of the amendments. However, the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution states that powers not delegated to the federal government "are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people." Thus, education becomes a function of the state rather than the federal government. -
The Deaf Get Their Own School
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 U.S. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc are the school's co-founders. In 1864, Thomas Gallaudet's son, Edward Miner Gallaudet, helps to start Gallaudet University, the first college specifically for deaf students. -
Ashmun Institute
Now Lincoln University, it was founded on October 12, and as Horace Mann Bond, the university's eighth president states in his book, Education for Freedom: A History of Lincoln University, it becomes the "first institution anywhere in the world to provide higher education in the arts and sciences for male youth of African descent." The university's many distinguished alumni include Langston Hughes and Thurgood Marshall. -
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is Founded
It is charted by an act of Congress in 1906, the same year the Foundation encouraged the adoption of a standard system for equating "seat time" (the amount of time spent in a class) to high school credits. Still in use today, this system came to be called the "Carnegie Unit." -
Case of Lau v. Nichols
The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the failure of the San Francisco School District to provide English language instruction to Chinese-American students with limited English proficiency (LEP) is a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Though the case does not require a specific approach to teaching LEP students, it does require school districts to provide equal opportunities for all students, including those who do not speak English. -
No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)
The controversial No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is approved by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush on January 8, 2002. The law, which reauthorizes the ESEA of 1965 and 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.
