To address this issue, the National Education Association formed the “Committee of Ten” in 1892. This was a group of educators—primarily university presidents—led by Charles Eliot, the president of Harvard, whose mission was to determine what primary and secondary education should be like. It was these ten men who decided that everyone in the United States should—starting at age six and ending at age eighteen—have eight years of elementary education followed by four years of high school. They decided that English, math, and reading should be covered every year, while chemistry and physics
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