Community college
A two-year, degreegranting public institution of post–secondary school education, designed to serve the needs of the local area or community.
Common school
The predecessor institution of the modern, tax-supported, American public elementary school, which every child in the school district may attend free of charge.
Common branches
An obsolete term referring to the basic subjects of an elementary school curriculum, including such branches as English, arithmetic, science, history, music, art, and so on.
Common application
A standardized college application originally developed by a group of about a dozen midwestern and eastern colleges and universities to ease the clerical burden on college applicants.
Committee on College Entrance Requirements
A NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION group formed in 1895 to develop a standardized high school curriculum to prepare students for college.
Committee on Civil Rights
A group appointed by President Harry S. Truman to study law enforcement measures “to safeguard the civil rights of the people.”
Committee of Ten
A NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION group formed in 1891 to study and recommend reforms for secondary school education in the United States.
Committee of Fifteen
A NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION group formed in 1893 to study and recommend reforms for elementary school education in the United States.
Committee for Public Education and Religious Freedom v. Regan
A 1980 U.S. Supreme Court decision that New York State could reimburse private and parochial schools for the costs of state-mandated testing and other activities.
Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education
A NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION group whose 1918 report, Cardinal Principles of Education, served as a blueprint for reorganizing comprehensive public high schools.
Commission on the Future of Higher Education
A commission appointed by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings to determine the skills college students should be acquiring—writing, critical thinking...
Commission on Professional Rights and Responsibilities
A NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION group charged with enforcing the NEA’s Code of Ethics of the Education Profession.
Commission on Higher Education
A group established in 1946 by President Harry S. Truman to study the role of higher education in American life.
Commission on Country Life
A commission of academic leaders, created in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt to study the deteriorating quality of life in rural America and recommend ways for remedying the situation.
Commission on Academic Freedom
A group formed by the AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS in 1985 to combat censorship in elementary and secondary schools.
Commercial schools
Any of a wide variety of FOR-PROFIT SCHOOLS or PROPRIETARY SCHOOLS.
Commencement
The act of beginning; a term used since the 13th century for ceremonies in which academic diplomas or degrees are conferred on students graduating to and...
Command and General Staff School
A specialized college in Leavenworth, Kansas, that provides graduate-level military science instruction for prospective U.S. Army colonels.
James P. Comer M.D. (1934– )
American professor of child psychiatry and founding director of the Yale Child Study Center School Development Program, at Yale University.
John Amos Comenius (1592–1670)
Moravian educator, whose Orbis sensualium pictus (1659) revolutionized the teaching of Latin and became a standard grammar school text in England and the colonies.
Columbian Agricultural Society for the Promotion of Rural and Domestic Economy
A privately funded, early 19th-century organization that taught farmers to become more efficient.
Columbia College
The four-year undergraduate institution that was founded in 1754 as King’s College and now forms the heart of Columbia University.
Color phonics systems
A method of teaching letter sounds and reading by color-coding vowels and various letter combinations.
Colorado
The 38th state, admitted to the Union on the nation’s 100th anniversary.