When did the US Government begin to standardize and legislate national education?
The wording of your question, and the topics list, make me a little wary of jumping in on this, but I do hold a teaching certificate, so I’ll bite. The origins of free (tax supported) public education in the U.S. date back to the 1600s. You can go to Wiki and look up the “Old Deluder Satan Act” if you want details on what is credited as the first law establishing some kind of public school. However, the administration of public education has, for most of U.S. history, been the province of state and local school boards. Exceptions have mostly had to do with Constitutional issues, such as Brown v. Board of Education, and national civil rights legislation which asserted Federal supremacy over access to public education, and First Amendment issues such as prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance, etc. The schools and various governments have been in court constantly for most of this period, so that aspect of government control is far too large a topic to detail here. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973
