Education Week, 2005, April 15, Vol. 24, Issue 31,
Pages 1,42
By Erik W. Robelen
If President Lyndon B. Johnson were alive today, he might be a
little
surprised to see what’s become of the federal schools legislation he
signed
into law 40 years ago this week.
President Johnson at 1965
signing, with
his childhood teacher Kate Deadrich Loney.
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act has been amended and
rewritten
many times since April 11, 1965, the day Mr. Johnson stood before the
former
one-room schoolhouse in Stonewall, Texas, he once attended to make it
the law
of the land.
In many ways, the middle-aged law barely resembles the infant born
in the
heyday of 1960s idealism.
The statute is much fatter now, covering far more programs. The
federal
government, under Congress’ 2001 reauthorization of the ESEA that is
better
known as the No Child Left Behind Act, has attached a lot more demands
in
return for federal aid, demands that focus on testing students and
holding
schools accountable for their academic progress.
But the core mission espoused in the 1965 statute—helping
disadvantaged
students improve academically through the cornerstone Title I
program—holds
true.
“The Great Society established the federal role in education as an
equity
role, as a role of the federal government trying to help kids who were
neglected for some reason or another in schools,” said Jack Jennings,
the
president of the Center on Education Policy, a Washington research and
advocacy
group.
“And that has remained as the federal role, even in the guise of No
Child
Left Behind. … That legacy remains,” said Mr. Jennings, who as a
longtime top
aide to Democrats on the House education committee helped rewrite the
ESEA
several times.
Conceived as part of President Johnson’s War on Poverty, the
original
statute was focused primarily on delivering federal aid to help level
the
educational playing field for poor and minority children. And Mr.
Johnson—a
former teacher at a predominantly Mexican-American school in
“By passing this bill, we bridge the gap between helplessness and
hope for
more than 5 million educationally deprived children,” he told the crowd
assembled
that spring day in his home state. “I believe deeply no law I have
signed or
will ever sign means more to the future of
Nearly four decades later, President Bush offered his own optimistic
take on
what the No Child Left Behind Act would
mean, and,
like Mr. Johnson, traveled to a school to sign his prized legislation.
“[T]oday begins a new era, a new time in public education in our
country,”
Mr. Bush said in 2002 at
Even if, next to the No Child Left Behind
Act, the
original law seems a tad timid, in 1965 it brought a sea change for
federal
involvement in schooling. By some estimates, federal K-12 spending
tripled
between 1964 and 1966.
The ESEA represented “the first really direct reach into [all]
school
districts in the
Historians credit President Johnson and his administration with a
masterful
performance in navigating the legislation through Congress in less than
100
days.
At a White House ceremony three days after signing the legislation,
Mr.
Johnson made clear how high a priority it was for him.
“I worked harder and longer on this measure than on any measure I
have ever
worked on since I came to
Of course, the ESEA wasn’t the only aspect of President Johnson’s
agenda to
battle poverty. Other key initiatives from that time included the Head
Start
preschool program and the Higher Education Act. And the ESEA quickly
grew, with
programs added later in the 1960s for children with disabilities, for
students
needing bilingual education, and those facing other educational
challenges.
Over the years, several presidents and countless federal lawmakers
have
sought to put their imprint on the ESEA. The law’s formula for doling
out Title
I aid, for instance, has been relentlessly tweaked. Some early changes
to the
law responded to the misuse of federal money by schools, including to construct swimming pools.
Especially in the late 1980s and on until today, much of the focus
has
shifted to finding ways for the federal government to hold states and
districts
accountable for showing better academic results, as the same
achievement gaps
for poor and minority children that were obvious in the 1960s persist.
“Basically, the attitude people had [when the law first passed] was,
just
give the school people good money, and good things will happen,” said
Christopher T. Cross, a former assistant education secretary in
President
George H.W. Bush’s administration and the author of a 2004 book on the
history
of the federal role in schooling, Political Education: National
Policy Comes
of Age.
The 1988 reauthorization—signed by President Reagan, who earlier had
consolidated many federal school programs and oversaw cuts in education
spending—began to focus on educational outcomes, including demands for
testing
and accountability. That emphasis grew more focused and intensive with
President Clinton’s Goals 2000 initiative and the 1994 ESEA
reauthorization,
which mandated that states develop uniform academic standards for all
their
students and aligned assessments to measure student progress.
The move toward testing and accountability has been ratcheted up
significantly with the ESEA’s No Child Left Behind incarnation.
“I think it’s been a natural evolution, frankly,” said Mr. Cross.
“If anything,
what I would be surprised about is that it took almost 40 years to get
as
serious about it as we are.”
One significant change is the law’s sweep: The current legislation
in
various ways affects all public schools and students, not just
disadvantaged youths.
“The No Child Left Behind Act, building
on
When Congress first passed the ESEA 40 years ago, it did so despite
resistance from several quarters, including Southern Democrats who
feared
federal interference in racial-segregation practices, and conservative
Republicans, who feared
Given the latter group, David S. Seeley, an education professor at
the City
University of New York who worked in the U.S. Office of Education when
the ESEA
was first passed, sees some irony in President Bush’s driving the No
Child Left
Behind Act.
“There was still a lot of fear that federal money would mean
intrusion into
local school systems,” he said of sentiments in 1965. “Now we come
along with a
conservative Republican pushing through a bill that has far more
intrusion into
local education policy than anything that could have been imagined in
the
’60s.”
Marshall S. Smith, a former deputy education secretary under
President
Clinton and now the education policy director for the William and Flora
Hewlett
Foundation in
“There’s been a struggle in Title I for 40 years,” he said. “In the
late
’60s, it took the form of misuse of funds … so they put in a whole
bunch of
fiscal regulations.”
“What those things did was to begin to drive the program,” spurring
schools
to pull disadvantaged children out of the classroom for special courses
often
taught by less-qualified instructors, Mr. Smith said. “It was just an
awful
consequence.”
Mr. Smith said he worries that the No Child Left Behind law’s
demands are
creating new problems.
“The present law is in its most top-down manifestation, and has sets
of requirements
that actually tie the hands of people in the schools in many ways,” he
said.
Historians say President Johnson would be dismayed to see how, four
decades
after he launched his Great Society programs, poverty is so persistent,
and poor and minority children still lag well behind the education
curve.
“The one thing about Johnson,” said Roger Wilkins, a professor of
history
and American culture at
“He really cared deeply, profoundly,” said Mr. Wilkins, who served
in
several posts during the Johnson administration.
It’s hard to guess what Mr. Johnson would make of the aggressive
federal
role under the No Child Left Behind Act.
But Maris A. Vinovskis, an education historian at the
“He didn’t have any qualms about states’ rights and the use of
central-government power,” Mr. Vinovskis said. “What
Johnson
would have done [would be] whatever it takes to make this work, money
or
whatever is needed. … He would have the hubris to think that his
solutions, or his proposed solutions, are right.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - -
The ESEA at 40
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act has seen plenty of
changes over
the past 40 years. The timeline highlights several key alterations, as
well as
two U.S. Supreme Court decisions related to the law.
1965: President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the
Elementary and
Secondary Education Act, ushering in a major expansion of the federal
role in
schools. The centerpiece of the new law is the Title I program for
disadvantaged students.
1968: Congress expands the ESEA with new programs
and
titles, including programs for migrant children, neglected or
delinquent
children, and the Bilingual Education Act.
1970: In response to widespread reports of misused
federal
funds, the law is changed to clamp down on how Title I aid is spent.
The
legislation, signed by President Richard M. Nixon, adds demands that
the
federal aid “supplement, not supplant” money spent by states and
localities,
and that Title I schools receive state and local aid “comparable” to
that
received by other schools in the state.
1978: In a reauthorization signed by President
Jimmy
Carter, Title I aid for the first time can be spent “schoolwide” if at
least 75
percent of children in the school are eligible for the aid.
1981: President Ronald Reagan pushes hard for a
rewrite of
the law consolidating many programs into a block grant, though the
reauthorization main-tains Title I—renamed Chapter 1—as a separate
program. It
also reduces regulatory and paperwork requirements for states and
districts.
This reauthorization ushered in a period of depressed spending under
the
federal law.
1985: The Supreme Court, on a 5-4 vote in Aguilar
v. Felton, rules that the practice of sending public school
teachers
into religious schools violates the First Amendment’s ban on government
establishment of religion. As a result, students from religious schools
must
travel to mobile vans, public schools, or other neutral sites to
receive Title
I services.
1988: The law takes important steps toward the kind
of
student testing and accountability later expanded upon. Districts must
annually
assess, based on standardized-test scores, the effectiveness of Chapter
1
programs in schools. Program improvement plans are required for each
school
that does not make substantial progress toward raising student
achievement.
1994: President Bill Clinton signs the Improving
America’s
Schools Act, a reauthorization of the ESEA that requires states to
develop
standards and aligned assessments for all students. Districts also must
identify schools not making “adequate yearly progress” and take steps
to
improve them, though the law is far less strict than the 2001 version
in
defining AYP and applying consequences to schools that don’t make it.
1997: The Supreme Court, on a 5-4 vote in Agostini
v. Felton, overturns its 1985 ruling by deciding that the
U.S.
Constitution does not prohibit school districts from sending teachers
into
religious schools to provide Title I ser-vices to needy students.