Educational Timeline
2000 - Diane Ravitch's book, Left Back: A Century of Failed School
Reforms, criticizes progressive educational policies and
argues for a more traditional, academically-oriented education. Her views,
which are reminiscent of the "back to the basics" movement of the late 1970s
and 1980s, are representative of the current conservative trend in education
and the nation at large.
2000 - In yet another case regarding
school prayer (Santa Fe School District v. Doe), the U.S. Supreme Court rules that
the district's policy of allowing student-led prayer prior to football games
violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
2001 - Nineteen
al-Qaeda terrorists hijack four commercial jet
airliners on the morning of September 11. They crash two into the twin
towers of the World
Trade Center and another into the Pentagon. The fourth plane
crashes in a rural area of Pennsylvania as passengers try to retake it from the
hijackers. A total of 2976 victims as well as the 19 terrorists are killed. The
attacks have a devastating effect on the both U.S. and world stock markets,
result in the passage of the Patriot Act, formation of the Department of Homeland Security, provide the
impetus for two wars, and take a lasting toll on Americans' sense of safety and
well-being.
2001 - 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.
2002
- In the case of Zelman
v. Simmons-Harris the U.S. Supreme
court rules that certain school voucher programs are
constitutional and do not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
2002 - The North
American Reggio Emilia Alliance (NAREA) is formally launched as
an organization. Its goals include promoting the rights of young children and
providing information about the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood
education.
2003
- The Higher Education Act is again amended and reauthorized, expanding access to
higher education for low and middle income students, providing additional funds
for graduate studies, and increasing accountability.
2003 - The
North American
Council for Online Learning (NACOL), a non-profit organization
dedicated to enhancing K-12 online education, is "launched as a formal
corporate entity."
2004 - H.R. 1350, The Individuals with Disabilities Improvement Act
(IDEA 2004), reauthorizes and modifies
IDEA. Changes, which take
effect on July 1, 2005, include modifications in the IEP process and
procedural safeguards, increased authority for school personnel in special
education placement decisions, and alignment of IDEA with the
No Child Left Behind Act. The 2004
reauthorization also requires school districts to use the Response to Intervention (RTI) approach as a
means for the early identification of students at risk for specific learning
disabilities. RTI provides a three-tiered model for screening, monitoring, and
providing increasing degrees of intervention using “research-based instruction"
with the overall goal of reducing the need for special education services
2005 - In the latest incarnation of the "Monkey Trial," the U.S. District
Court of Pennsylvania rules in the case of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District that
teaching "intelligent design" as an alternative to
evolution is a violation of the First Amendment.
2007 - On
January 1, 2007, the American Association on Mental Retardation (AAMR) became
the American
Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
(AAIDD), joining the trend toward use of the term intellectual disability in place of mental retardation.
2007 - Cho
Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old student, kills two students in a dorm and then 30 others in a classroom
building at Virginia Tech University. Fifteen others are
wounded. His suicide brings the death toll to 33, making it the deadliest
school shooting incident in U.S. history.
2007 - In the cases of
Parents
involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No 1
and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education,
the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that race cannot be a factor in assigning
students to high schools, thus rejecting integration plans in Seattle and
Louisville, and possibly affecting similar plans in school districts around the
nation.
2007 - Both the House and Senate pass the Fiscal Year 2008 Labor-HHS-
Education appropriation bill which includes reauthorization of the No Child Left
Behind Act. However, the bill is vetoed by President Bush because it exceeds his
budget request. Attempts to override the veto fall short.
2008 -
Less than one year after the Virginia Tech massacre, former graduate student
Stephen P. Kazmierczak kills five and wounds 17 in a classroom at Northern Illinois
University. He later takes his own life.
2008 - Barack
Obama defeats John
McCain and is elected the 44th President of the United States.
Substantial changes in the No Child Left Behind Act are
eventually expected, but with two ongoing wars as well as the current
preoccupation with our nation's economic problems, reauthorization of NCLB is
unlikely to happen any time soon.
2009 - The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009
provides more than 90-billion dollars for education, nearly half of which goes
to local school districts to prevent layoffs and for school modernization and
repair. It includes the Race to the Top initiative, a
4.35-billion-dollar program designed to induce reform in K-12 education. For
more information on the impact of the Recovery Act on education, go to ED.gov.
2009 - The Common Core State Standards Initiative, "a
state-led effort coordinated by the National Governors
Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State
School Officers," is launched. It is expected that many, perhaps
most, states
will adopt them.
2009 - Quest to Learn (Q2L), the first school to teach
primarily through game-based learning, opens in September in New York City with
a class of sixth graders There are plans to add a grade each year until the
school serves students in grades six through twelve.
2010 - With
the U.S. economy mired in the "great recession" and unemployment remaining
high, states
have massive budget deficits. As many as 300,000 teachers face
layoffs.
2010 - New Texas social studies curriculum standards,
described by some as “ultraconservative,” spark controversy. Many fear they will affect textbooks and classrooms in other
states..
2011 - Sylvia Mendez, whose parents where lead
plaintiffs in the historic civil rights case, Mendez vs. Westminster and the California Board of
Education, is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on February
16th..
2011 - In spite of workers' protests and
Democratic legislators leaving the state to delay the vote, the Wisconsin legislature passes a bill removing
most collective-bargaining rights from many public employees, including
teachers. Governor Scott Walker signs the bill into law on March 11. After
legal challenges are exhausted, it is finally implemented in June. A similar
measure passes in Ohio but is later repealed through a state referendum.
2011 - President Barack Obama announces on September 23
that the U.S. Department of Education is inviting each State educational agency
to request
flexibility regarding some requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act.
2011 -
Alabama becomes the first state "to require public schools to
check the immigration status" of students. Though the law does
not require schools to prohibit the enrollment nor report the names of
undocumented children, opponents nevertheless contend it is unconstitutional
based on the Plyer v. Doe ruling.
2012 -
President Barack Obama announces on February 9 that the applications of ten states seeking waivers from some of the
requirements of the No
Child Left Behind law were approved. New Mexico's application is approved a few days
later, bringing the number of states receiving waivers to 11. An additional 26 states applied for waivers in late
February.
2012 - On July 6, Washington and Wisconsin
become the two most recent states to be granted waivers from some requirements
of the federal No Child left Behind law, bringing the total number of states granted waivers to 26.
Several more states have submitted waiver applications and are waiting for
approval.
2012 - As of December, 33 states and Washington, D.C. have been granted
waivers from some No Child Left Behind requirements.
2012 - On December 14, Adam Lanza, 20, kills his mother and then invades Sandy Hook
Elementary School where he kills 20 children and six
adults, including principal Dawn Hochsprung and psychologist Mary
Sherlachmaking, making this the second deadliest mass shooting by a single
person in U.S. history.
2013 - On January 11, the Washington
Post reports that Seattle high school teachers have refused to give the
district-mandated Measures of Academy Progress, joining a
"growing grass-roots revolt against the excessive use of standardized
tests."
2013 - On May 22, the Chicago Board of Education votes to close 50
schools, the largest mass closing in U.S. history. Mayor Rahm
Emanuel and CPS officials claim the closures are not only necessary to reduce
costs, but will also improve educational quality. However, Chicago teachers and
other opponents say the closures disproportionately affect low-income and
minority students, but their efforts to stop the closings, which included
tthree lawsuits, were unsuccessful. Other cities, including Detroit,
Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., have also recently closed large numbers of
public schools. Lawsuits by
2013- The School District of Philadelphia announces on June 7 that it
will cut nearly 4000 employees, including 676 teachers as well
as many administrators and guidance counselors.
2013 - On
Friday, June 14 the Chicago Public Schools announce that they will be laying off
663 employees, including 420 teachers. A month later, they lay off another 2100 employees including more
than 1000 teachers! CPS blames the layoffs on "the state's failure to enact pension
reform."
2013 - In the case of Fisher v. University of Texas, the U.S. Supreme rules on June
25 that affirmative action is constitutional only if it is “narrowly
tailored.” The Court then sends the case back to the lower
courts to determine if the University of Texas policy meets this
standard.
2013 - William Glasser, author of more than two dozen
books including Choice Theory and Schools Without Failure, dies at age 88.
2013 - On October
21, a 13-year-old student arrives on the campus of Sparks, Nevada
middle school armed with a handgun. He wounds two 12-year old
boys and kills a teacher who was trying to protect other students before he
turns the gun on himself and takes his own life.
2013 - The most recent results of the Program for International Student
Assessment, released December 2, 2013, show that the achievement
U.S. teenagers continues to lag behind that of their counterparts in other
developed countries, particularly those from Asia.
2013 - In yet
another school shooting tragedy, high school senior Karl
Pierson enters Arapohoe High School (Centennial, Colorado) on December 13
armed with a shotgun, machete, and Molotov Cocktails. His goal apparently was
to take revenge on the school librarian and debate coach who had disciplined
him earlier in the school year. Instead, before taking his own life, he
critically wounds a female classmate. She dies eight days later.
2014 - President Barack Obama signs the 1.1-trillion dollar
bipartisan budget bill on January 17. The bill restores some, but not all, of the cuts to federal
education programs that resulted from sequestration. It is the first budget to be
agreed to by our divided government since 2009!
e
2000 - Diane Ravitch's book, Left Back: A Century of Failed School
Reforms, criticizes progressive educational policies and
argues for a more traditional, academically-oriented education. Her views,
which are reminiscent of the "back to the basics" movement of the late 1970s
and 1980s, are representative of the current conservative trend in education
and the nation at large.
2000 - In yet another case regarding
school prayer (Santa Fe School District v. Doe), the U.S. Supreme Court rules that
the district's policy of allowing student-led prayer prior to football games
violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
2001 - Nineteen
al-Qaeda terrorists hijack four commercial jet
airliners on the morning of September 11. They crash two into the twin
towers of the World
Trade Center and another into the Pentagon. The fourth plane
crashes in a rural area of Pennsylvania as passengers try to retake it from the
hijackers. A total of 2976 victims as well as the 19 terrorists are killed. The
attacks have a devastating effect on the both U.S. and world stock markets,
result in the passage of the Patriot Act, formation of the Department of Homeland Security, provide the
impetus for two wars, and take a lasting toll on Americans' sense of safety and
well-being.
2001 - 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.
2002
- In the case of Zelman
v. Simmons-Harris the U.S. Supreme
court rules that certain school voucher programs are
constitutional and do not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
2002 - The North
American Reggio Emilia Alliance (NAREA) is formally launched as
an organization. Its goals include promoting the rights of young children and
providing information about the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood
education.
2003
- The Higher Education Act is again amended and reauthorized, expanding access to
higher education for low and middle income students, providing additional funds
for graduate studies, and increasing accountability.
2003 - The
North American
Council for Online Learning (NACOL), a non-profit organization
dedicated to enhancing K-12 online education, is "launched as a formal
corporate entity."
2004 - H.R. 1350, The Individuals with Disabilities Improvement Act
(IDEA 2004), reauthorizes and modifies
IDEA. Changes, which take
effect on July 1, 2005, include modifications in the IEP process and
procedural safeguards, increased authority for school personnel in special
education placement decisions, and alignment of IDEA with the
No Child Left Behind Act. The 2004
reauthorization also requires school districts to use the Response to Intervention (RTI) approach as a
means for the early identification of students at risk for specific learning
disabilities. RTI provides a three-tiered model for screening, monitoring, and
providing increasing degrees of intervention using “research-based instruction"
with the overall goal of reducing the need for special education services
2005 - In the latest incarnation of the "Monkey Trial," the U.S. District
Court of Pennsylvania rules in the case of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District that
teaching "intelligent design" as an alternative to
evolution is a violation of the First Amendment.
2007 - On
January 1, 2007, the American Association on Mental Retardation (AAMR) became
the American
Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
(AAIDD), joining the trend toward use of the term intellectual disability in place of mental retardation.
2007 - Cho
Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old student, kills two students in a dorm and then 30 others in a classroom
building at Virginia Tech University. Fifteen others are
wounded. His suicide brings the death toll to 33, making it the deadliest
school shooting incident in U.S. history.
2007 - In the cases of
Parents
involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No 1
and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education,
the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that race cannot be a factor in assigning
students to high schools, thus rejecting integration plans in Seattle and
Louisville, and possibly affecting similar plans in school districts around the
nation.
2007 - Both the House and Senate pass the Fiscal Year 2008 Labor-HHS-
Education appropriation bill which includes reauthorization of the No Child Left
Behind Act. However, the bill is vetoed by President Bush because it exceeds his
budget request. Attempts to override the veto fall short.
2008 -
Less than one year after the Virginia Tech massacre, former graduate student
Stephen P. Kazmierczak kills five and wounds 17 in a classroom at Northern Illinois
University. He later takes his own life.
2008 - Barack
Obama defeats John
McCain and is elected the 44th President of the United States.
Substantial changes in the No Child Left Behind Act are
eventually expected, but with two ongoing wars as well as the current
preoccupation with our nation's economic problems, reauthorization of NCLB is
unlikely to happen any time soon.
2009 - The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009
provides more than 90-billion dollars for education, nearly half of which goes
to local school districts to prevent layoffs and for school modernization and
repair. It includes the Race to the Top initiative, a
4.35-billion-dollar program designed to induce reform in K-12 education. For
more information on the impact of the Recovery Act on education, go to ED.gov.
2009 - The Common Core State Standards Initiative, "a
state-led effort coordinated by the National Governors
Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State
School Officers," is launched. It is expected that many, perhaps
most, states
will adopt them.
2009 - Quest to Learn (Q2L), the first school to teach
primarily through game-based learning, opens in September in New York City with
a class of sixth graders There are plans to add a grade each year until the
school serves students in grades six through twelve.
2010 - With
the U.S. economy mired in the "great recession" and unemployment remaining
high, states
have massive budget deficits. As many as 300,000 teachers face
layoffs.
2010 - New Texas social studies curriculum standards,
described by some as “ultraconservative,” spark controversy. Many fear they will affect textbooks and classrooms in other
states..
2011 - Sylvia Mendez, whose parents where lead
plaintiffs in the historic civil rights case, Mendez vs. Westminster and the California Board of
Education, is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on February
16th..
2011 - In spite of workers' protests and
Democratic legislators leaving the state to delay the vote, the Wisconsin legislature passes a bill removing
most collective-bargaining rights from many public employees, including
teachers. Governor Scott Walker signs the bill into law on March 11. After
legal challenges are exhausted, it is finally implemented in June. A similar
measure passes in Ohio but is later repealed through a state referendum.
2011 - President Barack Obama announces on September 23
that the U.S. Department of Education is inviting each State educational agency
to request
flexibility regarding some requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act.
2011 -
Alabama becomes the first state "to require public schools to
check the immigration status" of students. Though the law does
not require schools to prohibit the enrollment nor report the names of
undocumented children, opponents nevertheless contend it is unconstitutional
based on the Plyer v. Doe ruling.
2012 -
President Barack Obama announces on February 9 that the applications of ten states seeking waivers from some of the
requirements of the No
Child Left Behind law were approved. New Mexico's application is approved a few days
later, bringing the number of states receiving waivers to 11. An additional 26 states applied for waivers in late
February.
2012 - On July 6, Washington and Wisconsin
become the two most recent states to be granted waivers from some requirements
of the federal No Child left Behind law, bringing the total number of states granted waivers to 26.
Several more states have submitted waiver applications and are waiting for
approval.
2012 - As of December, 33 states and Washington, D.C. have been granted
waivers from some No Child Left Behind requirements.
2012 - On December 14, Adam Lanza, 20, kills his mother and then invades Sandy Hook
Elementary School where he kills 20 children and six
adults, including principal Dawn Hochsprung and psychologist Mary
Sherlachmaking, making this the second deadliest mass shooting by a single
person in U.S. history.
2013 - On January 11, the Washington
Post reports that Seattle high school teachers have refused to give the
district-mandated Measures of Academy Progress, joining a
"growing grass-roots revolt against the excessive use of standardized
tests."
2013 - On May 22, the Chicago Board of Education votes to close 50
schools, the largest mass closing in U.S. history. Mayor Rahm
Emanuel and CPS officials claim the closures are not only necessary to reduce
costs, but will also improve educational quality. However, Chicago teachers and
other opponents say the closures disproportionately affect low-income and
minority students, but their efforts to stop the closings, which included
tthree lawsuits, were unsuccessful. Other cities, including Detroit,
Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., have also recently closed large numbers of
public schools. Lawsuits by
2013- The School District of Philadelphia announces on June 7 that it
will cut nearly 4000 employees, including 676 teachers as well
as many administrators and guidance counselors.
2013 - On
Friday, June 14 the Chicago Public Schools announce that they will be laying off
663 employees, including 420 teachers. A month later, they lay off another 2100 employees including more
than 1000 teachers! CPS blames the layoffs on "the state's failure to enact pension
reform."
2013 - In the case of Fisher v. University of Texas, the U.S. Supreme rules on June
25 that affirmative action is constitutional only if it is “narrowly
tailored.” The Court then sends the case back to the lower
courts to determine if the University of Texas policy meets this
standard.
2013 - William Glasser, author of more than two dozen
books including Choice Theory and Schools Without Failure, dies at age 88.
2013 - On October
21, a 13-year-old student arrives on the campus of Sparks, Nevada
middle school armed with a handgun. He wounds two 12-year old
boys and kills a teacher who was trying to protect other students before he
turns the gun on himself and takes his own life.
2013 - The most recent results of the Program for International Student
Assessment, released December 2, 2013, show that the achievement
U.S. teenagers continues to lag behind that of their counterparts in other
developed countries, particularly those from Asia.
2013 - In yet
another school shooting tragedy, high school senior Karl
Pierson enters Arapohoe High School (Centennial, Colorado) on December 13
armed with a shotgun, machete, and Molotov Cocktails. His goal apparently was
to take revenge on the school librarian and debate coach who had disciplined
him earlier in the school year. Instead, before taking his own life, he
critically wounds a female classmate. She dies eight days later.
2014 - President Barack Obama signs the 1.1-trillion dollar
bipartisan budget bill on January 17. The bill restores some, but not all, of the cuts to federal
education programs that resulted from sequestration. It is the first budget to be
agreed to by our divided government since 2009!
e