Chapter 9 - The Federal and State Government and Education


INTRODUCTION

The Federal Role in Education

The Federal Role in Education The Federal contribution to national education expenditures is about 9 percent. However, this 9 percent includes educational expenditures from other Federal agencies, such as the Department of Health and Human Services' Head Start program and the Department of Agriculture's School Lunch program. Subtract these dollars, and ED is left with only about 6 percent of total education spending, or roughly $42 billion a year. That $42 billion, by the way, is about 1.9 percent of the Federal Government's $1.9 trillion budget.

Changing Roles in the Federal Government and Education

  • Current Period: 1980s and 1990s - The Cold War stimulated the first example of comprehensive Federal education legislation, when in 1958 Congress passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik. To help ensure that highly trained individuals would be available to help America compete with the Soviet Union in scientific and technical fields, the NDEA included support for loans to college students, the improvement of science, mathematics, and foreign language instruction in elementary and secondary schools, graduate fellowships, foreign language and area studies, and vocational-technical training.
    • The anti-poverty and civil rights laws of the 1960s and 1970s brought about a dramatic emergence of the Department's equal access mission. The passage of laws such as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 which prohibited discrimination based on race, sex, and disability, respectively made civil rights enforcement a fundamental and long-lasting focus of the Department of Education.
    • In 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act launched a comprehensive set of programs, including the Title I program of Federal aid to disadvantaged children to address the problems of poor urban and rural areas. And in that same year, the Higher Education Act authorized assistance for postsecondary education, including financial aid programs for needy college students. In 1980, Congress established the Department of Education as a Cabinet level agency. Today, ED operates programs that touch on every area and level of education.
    • The Department's elementary and secondary programs annually serve 15,000 school districts and more than 50 million students attending over 85,000 public schools and more than 26,000 private schools. Department programs also provide grant, loan, and work-study assistance to more than 8 million postsecondary students.
  • Clarifying the Federal Role in Education
  • The Department of Education Congressional Influence on Education Federal
  • Programs and Activities in Education
  • Grants for Schools
  • Grants for Colleges
  • Vocational Education Acts
  • Relief Acts
  • War Acts
  • National Defense Education Act
  • Compensatory Education Acts
  • Title IX
  • Bilingual Education
  • Education for the Handicapped
  • Educational Consolidation and Improvement Act (ECIA)