A Brief History of American Public Education
| 1635: | Latin Grammar School established. |
| 1647: | Old Deluder Satan Act passed. |
| 1779: | Thomas Jefferson proposed a system of education for all supported by taxes. |
| 1785: | Continental Congress passed a law creating townships and reserving a portion of each township for a local school. |
| 1794: | New York State established a Board of Regents. |
| 1805: | New York Public School Society formed to provide education for poor children. |
| 1820: | First Public High School, Boston English, opened. |
| 1830s: | Laws in some southern states forbade the teaching of reading and writing to slaves. |
| 1837: | Statewide Common School System established (Horace Mann). |
| 1839: | First Normal School established, Lexington, Massachusetts. |
| 1840s: | Over a million Irish immigrants, mainly Catholic, were driven out of Ireland by the Potato Famine and flocked to the United States, ultimately leading to the establishment of the Catholic parochial system. |
| 1851: | State of Massachusetts passed first compulsory education law. |
| 1865- 1877: | African Americans mobilized to bring free public education to the south for the first time. |
| 1925: | Supreme Court ruled that states could not compel Catholic children to attend public schools. Catholic schools were validated. |
| 1954: | Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling that racial segregation violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution. |
| 1958: | National Defense Education Act passed, emphasizing math and science (a direct response to the launching of Sputnik.) |
| 1964: | Civil Rights Act banned discrimination on the basis if race in all federally funded programs. Head Start began as a part of the War on Poverty. |
| 1965: | Elementary and Secondary Education Act passed. |
| 1972: | Title IX passed, prohibiting public schools to discriminate on the basis of gender. |
| 1994: | Elementary and Secondary Education Act; renewal under President Clinton required states to come up with content standards, assessments, and definition of adequate programs to measure children's progress. |
| 2001: | No Child Left Behind Act passed. |