Education

Public education is administered by the state department of education, which is supervised by the commissioner of education. The commissioner is appointed by an elected board of education and serves an indefinite term. Children from 7 to 16 years of age are required to attend school.

Kaw Indian Mission at Council Grove, opened in 1851, was reorganized in 1854 to become one of the first white schools in Kansas. Haskell Indian Nations University, opened in 1884 at Lawrence on land donated by residents, is the largest Indian school in the nation. (

The University of Kansas, the state's largest institution of higher learning, was opened at Lawrence in 1866. Its medical school and related facilities are in Kansas City. Kansas State University was established as Kansas State Agricultural College, a land-grant institution, in 1863 at Manhattan. The present name dates to 1959.