when did the education reform start in america
1980s
title: Education in the United States text: Schooling in America. Colonial New England encouraged its towns to support free public schools funded by taxation. In the early 19th century Massachusetts took the lead in school reform, with programs designed by Horace Mann that were widely emulated across the North. Teachers were especially trained in normal schools and taught the three Rs (of reading, writing, and arithmetic) and also history and geography. Public education was at the elementary level in most places. After the Civil War, the cities began building high schools. The South was far behind northern standards on every educational measure, and gave weak support to title: History of education in the United States text: had compulsory schooling laws; four were in the South. 30 states with compulsory schooling laws required attendance until age 14 (or higher). As a result, by 1910, 72 percent of American children attended school. Half the nation's children attended one-room schools. By 1918, every state required students to complete elementary school. As the nation was majority Protestant in the 19th century, most states passed a constitutional amendment, called Blaine Amendments, forbidding tax money be used to fund parochial schools. This was largely directed against Catholics, as the heavy immigration from Catholic Ireland after the 1840s aroused nativist sentiment. There were title: History of education in the United States text: designed to teach students the many specialized skills demanded in a modern, industrial society. In terms of programs this entailed the introduction of vocational instruction, a doubling of the period of schooling, and a broader concern for the welfare of urban youth. The social elite in many cities in the 1890s led the reform movement. Their goal was to permanently end political party control of the local schools for the benefit of patronage jobs and construction contracts, which had arisen out of ward politics that absorbed and taught the millions of new immigrants. New York City elite led progressive reforms. title: History of education in the United States text: the colonies. In New York, the medical department of King's College was established in 1767, and in 1770 it awarded the first American M.D. degree. After the Revolution, northern states especially emphasized education and rapidly established public schools. By the year 1870, all states had tax-subsidized elementary schools. The US population had one of the highest literacy rates in the world at the time. Private academies also flourished in the towns across the country, but rural areas (where most people lived) had few schools before the 1880s. In 1821, Boston started the first public high school in the United States. title: Education reform text: reforms in U.S. education stemmed from the civil rights movement and related trends; examples include ending racial segregation, and busing for the purpose of desegregation, affirmative action, and banning of school prayer. In the 1980s, some of the momentum of education reform moved from the left to the right, with the release of "A Nation at Risk", Ronald Reagan's efforts to reduce or eliminate the United States Department of Education. "[T]he federal government and virtually all state governments, teacher training institutions, teachers' unions, major foundations, and the mass media have all pushed strenuously for higher standards, greater accountability, more "time