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Early Laws of Education by the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
The earliest law relating to schooling entitled, "Old Deluder Satan Act" was implemented by the Puritans of the Massachusets Bay Colony in the year of 1647. This law required that every town with at least fifty families as residents must provide primary schooling for young children and hire a teacher to do the job. This lead to the establishment of dame schoools, which taught children lessons in the areas of reading, writing, and arithmetic. -
Providing Free and Accessible Education
By the year of 1820, the Northeast (following the lead of states Massachusetts and Connecticut) was working to organize education by the use of school systems to provide free and accessible education to all children. This movement was stimulated by Horace Mann, who worked to build common schools staffed by educated teachers who would teach effective school curricula to the children of the nation. -
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas
On May 17, 1954 the Supreme Court of the United States decided on this landmark case that resulted in immense progress towards equalizing education in America. Linda Brown would no longer have to walk a mile through a railroad yard to the black children's school across town while she lived only four blocks away from a school near her home. This case opened up the discussion board regarding school segregation across the country, and led to integrated schools nation-wide. -
"A Nation at Risk"
During the month of April in 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education published this document that questioned the value of an American education. This doucment points out that the education of children in other nations than our own had become increasingly superior to ours, especially in the areas of industry and science. This resluted in cirriculum changes as well as changes in teacher education and the expectations of education in America. -
New Version of ESEA
In the year of 2001, President George W. Bush's education secretary along with congressional leaders developed an updated version of The Elementary and Secondary Education Act and recongnized it as the No Child Left Behind Act. The first version of ESEA focuses on the idea of not leaving a racial or socioeconomic group out of a public education, while the updated version focuses on the importance of leaving no individual child behind.
