| 143 b.c. | Chengdu Shishi High School was established in China. |
| 69 | Quintillian founded his school of rhetoric. |
| 597 | The King's School, Canterbury, England was established. It has the distinction of being the oldest private school in the world still operating. |
| 1628 | Collegiate School was founded in Manhattan, New York, USA. It is the oldest private school in America still extant and operating. |
| 1799 | Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi starts a school for orphans in Burgdorf. His writings on education inspired the study of pedagogy. |
| 1809 | Johann Friedrich Herbart establishes pedagogy as an discipline at the university at Gottingen. |
| 1837 | Friedrich Froebel creates Kindergarten or the Children's Garden. Kindergarten is the traditional first year of primary or elementary education for children in the United States. |
| 1848 | Stephen Girard's estate establishes Girard College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for poor, white, fatherless boys. |
| 1874 | The German Saturday School Boston was founded thereby established the first foreign language school in the U.S. |
| 1887 | The will of Bernice Pauahi Bishop founds and endows the Kamehameha Schools in Hawaii. Mrs. Bishop was the last direct descendant of Hawaii's royal family. She directed that the schools educate free of charge indigenous children of the Hawaiian islands. |
| 1896 | John Dewey establishes The Laboratory Schools in Chicago, Illinois, and thus begins the movement known as progressivism in American education. |
| 1901 | Colonel Francis Parker starts what is now the Francis W. Parker School. Parker and John Dewey sought to educate productive members of society as to just teaching facts by rote. |
| 1907 | Dr. Maria Montessori opens her Casa de Bambini in the slums of Rome. Ironically her Montessori movement has spread around the world taking hold primarily in middle class families who appreciated education. |
| 1910 | The Hershey Industrial School admitted its first class. The Milton Hershey school (as it has been known since 1951) was established by chocolate maker Milton Hershey and his wife as a home and school for “poor, healthy white, male orphans between the ages of 8 through 18 years of age.” |
| 1919 | Rudolf Steiner founds the first Waldorf School in Stuttgart, Germany. Steiner espoused a humanist philosophy which he refined into anthroposophy. There are about a 1,000 schools worldwide which follow Steiner's teachings. |
| 1931 | Edward Harkness gives Exeter Academy a substantial gift to transform teaching by placing students around a large oval table with their teacher. |
| 1934 | Mae Carden establishes the first Carden School in New York City. She advocated a more structured approach to the core subjects than she felt was offered in certain progressive schools. |
| 1935 | Lycee Fran?ais de New York opens. It is the first international school in the U.S. offering a corse of study leading to the French Ministry of Education diploma. |
| 1962 | The National Association of Independent Schools was founded in New York City. Not all private schools belong to NAIS, but it has become a powerful advocate for private K-12 education. |
| 1990 | A voucher program known as the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program is enacted. |
| 1996 | Cristo Rey Jsuit High School opens in Chicago, Illinois, providing a virtually free education combined with work study for urban children from families with limited options. |
| 2001 | Several state tax credit provisions for K-12 private education are upheld. |
What's Happened to Catholic Education?
Schools are closing. Student populations declining. Why? Here are some answers.
Why You Won't Find Cheating in Private Schools
Strict codes of conduct are one reason why cheating in private schools is not a major issue. Not teaching to the test is another.
About Boys' Schools: In Their Words
Here are a dozen or so boys' schools' public thoughts about themselves and their missions.
Marketing the Small Private School
Some marketing resources and tips for small private schools with limited marketing budgets.
About Private Schools
Learn about the benefits of private schools and how they work.
Note: Data has been gathered from the Dept. of Education, schools, and commercial data sources.
