Education, Social Reform, and the State: ESEA and Federal Education Policy in the 1960s

This essay examines the history of federal education policy in the 1960s. Focusing on the ideological context and the political and institutional framework that shaped the history of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, it argues that federal education policy in the 1960s was informed by widely shared assumptions about the nature of poverty and about the relationship of the state to the economy. These assumptions made educational reform central to Great Society policies designed to eliminate poverty and equalize economic opportunity. Yet because the Great Society was reluctant to challenge existing institutional arrangements and was constrained by the makeup of the Democratic party coalition and the federal government's capacity to control local educational practices, it was unable to make the education of disadvantaged students a top priority of local school districts, even though it successfully institutionalized the federal commitment to improving education for economically disadvantaged children.