26 articles
Aligarh Movement
Aligarh Movement, Muslim reform movement of British India founded by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (1817–1898); centered on the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College (1875/1877), which became Aligarh Muslim University in 1920, promoting Western education and spawning the Muslim League.
Anísio Teixeira
Anísio Spínola Teixeira (1900–1971) was a Brazilian educator and jurist who led education reform in Rio de Janeiro and Bahia, founded CAPES, and co-founded the University of Brasília.
Arne Duncan
Arne Duncan, ninth U.S. Secretary of Education (2009-2015) under Obama and former Chicago Public Schools CEO, drove Race to the Top, Common Core support, and NCLB waivers, then founded the anti-gun-violence group Chicago CRED in 2016.
Betsy DeVos
Betsy DeVos (born 1958), née Prince, is an American philanthropist and school-choice advocate who served as the 11th U.S. Secretary of Education (2017-2021), confirmed 51-50 with Pence's tie-breaking vote.
Bolivian education reform of 1955
The Bolivian education reform of 1955 established a single national school system through the Bolivian Education Code, opening schooling to the rural, indigenous majority for the first time.
Education reform
Education reform: purposeful change to education systems' policies, curricula, and governance. Also called educational change; spans Prussia's 1763 compulsory schooling, OECD implementation frameworks, and SDG 4 monitoring.
Elementary and Secondary Education Act
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), 1965 US federal law (P.L. 89-10) providing the first general federal K-12 aid, whose Title I funds disadvantaged students; reauthorized by NCLB 2001 and ESSA 2015.
Every Student Succeeds Act
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, P.L. 114-95), signed December 10, 2015, is the U.S. federal K-12 law that reauthorized the ESEA of 1965 and replaced No Child Left Behind, giving states control over accountability, testing flexibility, and report cards.
Horace Mann
Horace Mann (1796-1859), American educator and Whig politician, first secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education (1837-1848), leader of the common school movement, founder of normal schools, later U.S. representative and president of Antioch College.
Jiang Xueqin (蒋学勤)
Jiang Xueqin (蒋学勤), born in 1976, is a Chinese-Canadian educator and writer known for experimental school reform in China's elite high schools and the Predictive History YouTube channel.
John Taylor Gatto
John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018), American schoolteacher and author, New York State Teacher of the Year 1991, resigned via Wall Street Journal op-ed; wrote Dumbing Us Down and The Underground History of American Education criticizing compulsory schooling and promoting homeschooling and unschooling.
Jonathan Kozol
Jonathan Kozol, American education writer and former Boston teacher, Rhodes Scholar, author of Death at an Early Age (National Book Award) and Savage Inequalities (1991), chronicler of school funding inequality and segregation.
Katharine Birbalsingh
Katharine Birbalsingh, Britain's 'strictest headmistress', co-founded Michaela Community School in Wembley in 2014, chaired the Social Mobility Commission 2021-2023, and received a CBE in 2020.
Ken Robinson (educationalist)
Sir Ken Robinson (1950-2020), British educationalist, professor at the University of Warwick, chaired the UK's 1998 creativity commission; his 2006 TED talk "Do Schools Kill Creativity?" is TED's most-viewed talk; author of The Element and Creative Schools.
Lex Apponyi
Lex Apponyi is the name for Hungarian school laws of 1907 and 1908 under Count Albert Apponyi, tying state aid to church schools to Hungarian-language teaching.
Michelle Rhee
Michelle Rhee, DC Public Schools chancellor 2007–2010 under Mayor Adrian Fenty, founder of The New Teacher Project and creator of the IMPACT teacher-evaluation system; her tenure produced large teacher turnover, measured achievement gains, and persistent criticism over disparities and racial bias in evaluations.
Mississippi Miracle
The Mississippi Miracle is the rise of Mississippi's fourth-grade NAEP reading scores from 49th nationally in 2013 to 9th in 2024, attributed to the 2013 Literacy-Based Promotion Act, science-of-reading teacher training, and third-grade retention, with ongoing debate over causes.
New Math
New Math, also called New Mathematics, was a Cold War-era school mathematics reform movement, strongest in the United States from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s, that taught set theory and axiomatic algebra.
New Orleans school desegregation crisis
The New Orleans school desegregation crisis of November 14, 1960, when Ruby Bridges and three other first-graders integrated William Frantz and McDonogh 19 schools, the first Deep South school desegregation, amid massive state resistance.
No Child Left Behind Act
No Child Left Behind Act (P.L. 107-110, 2002), reauthorization of the ESEA: required grades 3-8 reading and math testing, disaggregated AYP with 95% participation, highly qualified teachers, escalating sanctions; replaced by ESSA in 2015.
Ratio Educationis
Ratio Educationis was a royal decree issued by Queen Maria Theresa in 1777, the first comprehensive state regulation of public education in the Kingdom of Hungary.
Savitribai Phule (सावित्रीबाई फुले)
Savitribai Phule (सावित्रीबाई फुले), 1831–1897, Indian social reformer regarded as India's first female school teacher; with Jyotirao Phule she opened Pune's 1848 girls' school, taught lower-caste children, and founded an 1863 infanticide-prevention home.
School choice
School choice: education policies letting families pick schools beyond assigned neighborhood schools, including vouchers, charter schools, ESAs, and open enrollment, originating with Milton Friedman's 1955 voucher proposal.
School integration in the United States
School integration in the United States: the movement to desegregate public schools launched by Brown v. Board (1954), enforced by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and court-ordered busing, which peaked in 1988 and has since reversed amid resegregation.
School voucher
School voucher: a publicly funded tuition certificate for private schools, proposed by Thomas Paine (1791) and popularized by Milton Friedman; US lottery evidence mostly shows null test-score effects, with Louisiana negative and Ohio college gains positive.
Spiru Haret
Spiru Haret (1851–1912) was a Romanian mathematician, astronomer, and statesman whose education laws of 1898–1910 reformed Romanian schooling; his doctoral work on planetary orbits drew praise from Henri Poincaré.