Education Policy: Research: Historical Overview: Introduction:
Federal Education Policy and the States, 1945-2009
Introduction: Federal Role and the States
In retrospect, General Eisenhower's denunciation of federal involvement with education appeared ironic, because his administration as president saw the most rapid expansion of federal aid to education to date, and nearly every administration after his-both Republican and Democratic-expanded the federal role in education. It will be useful, therefore, to survey the proposals of each succeeding presidential administration, examining the political, social, and ideological context that shaped its approach to education and identifying the most important legislation that arose in each period. Of course, each new piece of education-related legislation had its origins in the work of particular members of Congress, and these members of Congress, in turn, derived many of their ideas from local constituents in states throughout the country. In fact, the best way to understand the development of education policy at the federal level is often to study local issues in the states and districts of the senators and representatives who push particular bills or who hold leadership roles on key congressional committees responsible for education. As policy analyst Christopher Cross has observed, "Federal policy often follows state/local action."
In some cases, an innovative state-level program
can serve as the model for a new federal program. In other cases,
states and localities have jointly advocated for federal action
where a nationwide educational need was most efficiently addressed
at the federal level. In still other cases, state-level resistance
to federal action or a widespread lack of state-level
innovations can serve as the catalyst for new federal mandates or
federal grants. In yet other cases, the origins of a federal program
might lie in cross-state or even non-state activities such as the
work of interest groups, lobbies, community activists, philanthropic
foundations, or research organizations whose explicit goal is to
build on (or overcome obstacles to) various policy initiatives at
the state level. It will not be possible in this short historical
overview to scrutinize the state-level antecedents of every major
piece of federal education legislation. It will, however, be possible
to give a sense of the general evolution of a rapidly expanding
federal role in schools since 1950. It will also be possible, besides
following the activities of Congress and the presidency, to examine
the involvement of the federal courts in public schools.
One could well argue that the judicial branch has done even more
than the executive or the legislative branches of the federal government
to shape America's schools in the past fifty years. The courts,
therefore, will not be marginalized in this analysis.
