Historical Foundations of U.S.

Education Timeline/Outline 1

Historical Foundation of U.S. Education

Erika Parra
College of Southern Nevada
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1. Teaching and Schools in American Colonies during 1620-1750

i. Primary roots in English culture

ii. Study essential curriculum of reading, writing, and computation and

receiving religious instruction

iii. Stressed religious objectives

iv. Primary objective of elementary schooling was to learn to read so they

could read the Bible and religious catechisms

b. The Status of Teachers

i. Low status

ii. Minimal qualifications needed as well as low pay

c. Colonial Schools

i. General consensus was church, school and state were interrelated

ii. Parochial schools were more diverse and based on religious belief

iii. Protestant southern colonies purpose for education was to promote

religion and prepare students for college in Europe

iv. Majority of small farmers had no formal schooling

v. African slaves were only taught the basics needed to serve their master

vi. The Dame Schools

1. Initial instruction for boys

2. Often only schooling for girls

3. Ran by widows/housewives in homes

4. Modest fees from parents

5. Barest essential of reading, writing, and arithmetic

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6. Alphabet taught by the Horn Book

vii. Reading and Writing Schools

1. Boys received an education that went beyond what their parents

could teach them at home

2. Reading lessons based on the Bible, various religious catechisms

and the New England Primer

viii. Latin Grammar Schools

1. 1635: Boston Latin School founded

a. Provide a precollege education for the new country’s future

leaders

2. Boys enrolled at the age of 7 or 8

3. Helped prepare them for college like Harvard (established in 1636)

4. At 1st it was a seven year school then turned into a four year school

5. Latin and Greek were the primary principal studies

d. The Origins of Mandated Education

i. Massachusetts Act of 1642

1. By some the 1st school law in the colonies

2. Required each town to determine whether young people could read

and write

3. If not parents could be fined and possibly lose custody of their

children

4. Did not mandate establishment of school but did make it clear that

the education of children was a direct concern of the local citizenry

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ii. Massachusetts Act of 1648

1. Old Deludor Satan Act

2. Mandated the establishment and support of schools

3. Towns of 100 households or more establish a Latin Grammar

School

iii. Northwest Ordinance of 1785

1. Supported mandated education

2. Gave federal land to the states for educational purposes

e. Education for African American and Native Americans

i. 1704: one of the first schools for African Americans was started by Elias

Neau in New York City

1. Sponsored by the church of England

2. Taught African and Native Americans how to read as part of the

church’s effort to convert students

ii. 1770: Quaker school for African Americans by Anthony Benezet in

Philadelphia

iii. Quakers founded Indian Schools as philanthropic enterprises

iv. 1819: federal funds for reservations granted

2. Education during the Revolutionary Period 1750-1820

i. Characterized by a general warning of European influences on schools

ii. Colonies break with Europe was most potently demonstrated in the

American Revolution of 1776

b. Benjamin Franklin’s Academy

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i. Designed and promoted Philadelphia Academy (private secondary school)

ii. Opened in 1751 replaced Latin Grammar school

iii. Curriculum was broader and more practical

iv. Focused on English language

v. Academics were secular and often supported by public funds

c. Sarah Pierce’s Female Academy

i. English academics (people’s colleges) reached 6,185 in 1855

ii. Female academy in Litchfield, Connecticut

iii. Female seminaries- train women for higher education and public service

outside home

d. Thomas Jefferson’s Philosophy

i. 1824: opened a university of 40 students one month before his 81st

birthday

e. Noah Webster’s Speller

i. Elementary Spelling Book and The American Dictionary

ii. Old blue-back

3. State Supported Common Schools 1820-1865

i. 1821: 1st state supported high school was Boston English Classical School

ii. 1824: beginning for state-supported common schools

b. Horace Mann’s Contributions

i. 1873: 1st Secretary of State Board of Education

ii. Believed in universal free schools

iii. Improving schools

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iv. The Normal Schools

1. 1839: 1st public Normal School opened in Lexington,

Massachusetts

2. 1849: Electra Lincoln Walton was the head administrator and first

women to administer a state normal school

c. Reverend W.H. McGuffey’s Readers

i. McGuffey readers

d. Justin Morrill’s Land-Grant Schools

i. 1862: Morrill Land grant Act

1. Provided federal land for states either to sell or to rent in order to

raise funds for the establishment of colleges of agriculture and

mechanical arts

ii. 1890: second Morrill Act

1. Provided even more federal funds for land-grant colleges

4. Schools and the teaching Profession 1865-1920

i. 1869-70: only 64.7% of 5 to 17 year olds attended public schools

ii. 1919-20: raised to 78.3%

iii. 2004-05: raised to 91.7%

b. Higher Education for African Americans

i. 1880: Booker T. Washington helped found the Tuskegee institution

1. Industrial school for African Americans in the rural Alabama

c. The Kindergarten

i. 1837- First kindergarten founded

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1. Kindergarten “garden where children grow”

ii. 1855: Margarethe Schurz opened the first U.S. kindergarten in her home at

Watertown, Wisconsin

iii. 1860: Elizabeth Palmer Peabody opened the first private English speaking

kindergarten in Boston

iv. 1873: Susan Blow recognized as the first successful public kindergarten in

St. Louis

v. 1873: there were twelve kindergartens with 72 teachers and 1,252 students

d. The Professionalization of Teaching

i. 1857: National Education Association founded

ii. 1916: American Federation of Teachers founded

iii. Committee of Ten

1. 1892-1893: nine conferences evaluated high school curriculum

a. Recommendations stressed mental discipline in the

humanities, language, and science

iv. Committee of Fifteen

1. Examine elementary curriculum

2. 1895: called for introduction of Latin, the modern languages and

algebra

v. Reorganization of Secondary Education

1. 1913: the National Education Association appointed the

Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education.

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a. Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education released in

1918; called for high school curriculum designed to

accommodate individual differences in scholastic ability

vi. Women’s Influence on Teaching

1. 1990’s women influence

5. Aims of Education during the Progressive Era 1920-1945

i. Education in the U.S. was influenced significantly by the philosophy of

progressivism

1. Progressivism: philosophical orientation based on the belief that

life in evolving in a positive direction , that people may be trusted

to act in their own best interest, and that education should focus on

children’s interests and practical needs

ii. Teaching styles that relied exclusively on textbooks, recitations, and rote

memorization

iii. Classroom discipline based on fear or physical punishment

iv. Teachers acted as guides

b. John Dewey’s Laboratory School

i. 1896: opened a Laboratory School at University of Chicago with 2

instructors and 16 students

ii. Two purposes:

1. To exhibit, test, verify, and criticize theoretical statements and

principles
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2. To add to the sum of facts and principles in its special line with

question marks, rather than fixed rules

c. Maria Montessori’s Method

i. An Italian physician who helped develop new approaches on progressive

education

ii. Had a school for poor preschool age children in Rome

iii. Montessori’s Method: based on a prescribed set of materials and physical

exercises to develop children’s knowledge and skills

d. The Decline of Progressive Education

i. 1955: Progressive Education Association ceased operation

e. Education of Immigrants and Minorities

i. 1928: The Problem of Indian Administration recommended that Native

American education be restructured

ii. 1904: Mary McLeod Bethune founded the Daytona Normal and Industrial

School for Training Negro Girls

iii. 1923: school merged with boys’ school became Bethune-Cookman

College

iv. Advisory Board of the National Youth Administration

f. World War II and Increasing Federal Involvement in Education

i. 1941: Lanham Act- providing funding for

1. The training in war plants by U.S. Office of Education personnel

2. The construction of schools in areas where military personnel and

workers on federal projects resigned

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3. The provision of child care for the children of working parents

ii. 1944: G.I. Bill of Right/ Servicemen’s Readjustment Act

1. Provided millions of veterans with payments for tuition and room

and board of colleges and universities and at special schools

6. Education during the Modern Postwar Era 1945- to the present

i. How can full and equal educational opportunity be extended to all groups

in our culturally pluralistic society?

ii. What knowledge and skills should be taught in our nation’s schools?

iii. How should knowledge and skills be taught?

b. The 1950’s: Defense Education and School Desegregation

i. 1950’s war between U.S. and Soviet Union school systems

ii. Education was lacking because the Soviet Union launched the first

satellite

iii. National Defense Education Act of 1958: U.S. Office of Education

sponsored research and innovation in science, mathematics, modern

foreign languages, and guidance

iv. 1964: act extended for three years and expanded Title III of the act to

include money for improving instruction in reading, English, geography,

history, and civics

v. 1954: desegregation Brown v. Board of Education if Topeka

c. The 1960s: The War on Poverty and the Great Society

i. Teachers image enhanced

ii. Education was the key to breaking poverty

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iii. Subsidized breakfast and lunch programs, Head Start, Upward Bound, and

the Job Corps

iv. 1965L Elementary and Secondary Education Act: Allocated funds on the

basis of the number of poor children in school districts

v. 1968: Elementary and Secondary Education Act was amended with Title

VII the Bilingual Education Act- provide federal aid to low income

children “of limited English-speaking ability”

d. The 1970s: Accountability and Equal Opportunity

i. Back-to-basis movement/ increased teacher accountability

ii. Enrollment decreased

iii. Students and parents questioned the school curriculum

iv. 1972: Title IX Education Amendment prohibiting sex discrimination

v. 1972: The Indian Education Act

vi. 1975: the Education for All Handicapped Children Act- greater

educational opportunities to children with disabilities

vii. 1975: the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act

e. The 1980s: A Great Debate

i. 1982: Paideia Proposal (Mortimer Adler) called for a perennialist core

curriculum based on the Great Books

f. The 1990s: Teacher Leadership

i. Through collaborative relations with students, principals, parents, and the

private sector, teachers changed the nature of their profession