From Whence It Came: The Birth of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act

I. Background

The Common School

Lawyer, state senator and educator Horace Mann promoted the concept of all children learning together in “common” schools operated with public support. In 1837, as state senate president, Mann worked to establish the Massachusetts state board of education, of which he became the first secretary. “Education,” Mann wrote in his 1848 board report, “beyond all other devices of human origin is a great equalizer of the conditions of men,—the balance wheel of the social machinery.”

The Federal Role

In 1867 the Department of Education Act [yes, that was its title] specified the sole purpose of federal education activity was to conduct research through gathering statistics and reporting to the public the “condition of education,” as well as “observations about school organization and teaching methods,” which the “Bureau of Education” [no longer a department] would “compile and disseminate.”1

With the advent of Brown v. Board of Education a sea-change in federal/state relations over k-12 education occurred.

Federal Assistance

From the federal government’s inception schooling was viewed as a matter of local control. “Persons elected to the executive and legislative offices have not succeeded in reversing the passive federal role in education established in the Constitution,” according to the Education Commission of the States.

While being true to the founders’ belief in local control, Congress did initiate federal backing for public education through adoption of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which required land section set-asides for the purpose of financing public schools in each Northwest Territory federal land grant. States admitted to the Union in the post-Civil War era were “required…to provide free, nonsectarian public schools”2 as a condition of their admission. The Morrill Act (1862) created “land-grant colleges” through grants of federal land for “agriculture and engineering” The Birth of ESEA American Association of School Administrators Page 2 of 15 education.3. And in 1917 the Smith-Hughes Act offered matching federal funds to “encourage communities to establish vocational and agricultural courses in secondary schools.”4

In recognition of the tremendous influx of employees to staff the new, tax-exempt defense facilities and supply depots created prior to the war, Congress passed the 1940 Lanham Act, which provided funds for the construction and operation of elementary and secondary schools in these “impacted” areas of the nation. The program, initially viewed as temporary in nature, became an established program in 1950.

Federal education initiatives continued in the post-WWII era via the G.I. Bill’s guarantee of a college education to all returning veterans, and the 1958 Sputnik-generated National Defense Education Act, which pumped millions of dollars for science, math and language-learning curricula into states and local districts.

All the while, however, local control of K-12 education remained paramount. Federal involvement, in the form of “general aid,” faced fierce opposition for reasons of race, religion, and—during the McCarthy era—what might be seen as the “communist” implications of central control of the nation’s public schools. Consequently, any talk of open-ended general aid gave way to “categorical” assistance, i.e., funds to be distributed for a specific purpose, which included relieving the impact of federal facilities, and science education activities under NDEA.

President John Kennedy attempted (in 1961, ’62 and ’63) to expand the Impact Aid law by adding $2.3 billion for school construction and teacher salaries, but was blocked by Congress when he stated his opposition to using any funds for assistance to private schools.

II. The Johnson Proposal

As mentioned earlier, Brown v. Board of Education injected the federal government into how local schools operate, requiring genuinely equal educational opportunities for all children. Following his landslide victory and passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed any federal assistance to segregated schools, President Lyndon Johnson took the next major step. He proposed aggressive action—as a part of his “War on Poverty”—to make massive amounts of new federal funds available to districts with high concentrations of poor children. His plan, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, introduced early in his second term, moved rapidly— and virtually unchanged—through Congress and was signed into law April 11, 1965.

The heart of the bill (HR 2362) was contained in its first title, Title I, which was to receive $1 billion—of the $1.3 billion proposed by the President—for the purpose of “strengthening educational opportunities in those schools where there are concentrations of children coming from low-income families.” Funds were to be distributed by a formula based on the numbers of children in each county from families with annual incomes of $2,000 or less. Specifically, “an entitlement for the school districts within a county would be determined by multiplying the number of such children plus additional children whose families received more than $2,000 under AFDC by 50 percent of the average per pupil current expenditures in the State.”

The Birth of ESEA American Association of School Administrators Page 3 of 15 Title II of the bill offered grants to states for “textbooks, library resources, and other instructional materials to be made available to students and teachers on a loan basis.”

Title III proposed $100 million in grants to local districts “for the construction and operation of supplemental educational centers through which educational services and enriched educational opportunities would be provided to elementary and secondary school students.”

Title IV suggested up to $45 million “for the purpose of broadening educational research and the establishment of additional regional laboratory facilities.”

Title V “provides $25 million for grants to strengthen State departments of education.”

III. The Bush Proposal

During his 2000 campaign for president, George W. Bush said he would “insist upon local control of schools and high standards for results [and] make sure every child learns to read and no one is left behind.” He said he was “not running for federal superintendent of schools…[and said he] trust[s] the people of New Hampshire to make the right decisions for the children of New Hampshire,” adding, “I intend to pass power back form Washington to local jurisdictions, to enhance and encourage local control of schools.” Making high standards, local accountability and parental choice his education themes, Bush said, “If your school district or your schools receive a dime of federal money, I’m going to expect that school and district to measure and when we fine success there will be a bonus pool, but when we find failure after a three-year period of time, the money will no longer go to the school. It’ll go to the parent so the parent can make a different choice for his or her children.”

The No Child Left Behind Act, HR 1, became the most far-reaching k-12 legislation since the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which HR 1 altered substantially.

The heart of “No Child” also centered on Title I, which was to be amended to: • Require yearly testing and assessments of student performance, • Require state standards for and assessments of Adequate Yearly Progress, • Require school districts to identify schools shown as needing improvement, • Require districts to report to parents and the public on school performance and teacher quality, • Establish eligibility requirements for schoolwide Title I programs, • Require schools to increase the qualifications necessary for hired teachers and paraprofessionals, • Require schools that fail to make adequate yearly progress to offer parents of all children in that school the option to transfer to another public school, and offer low income children who remain in the lack-of-progress schools access to supplementary educational services provided by public and private, including religious, schools and providers.

Other, less comprehensive sections of HR 1 include: Title II state grants to help prepare, train and recruit “high quality” teachers and principals, The Birth of ESEA American Association of School Administrators Page 4 of 15 Title III state grants for language instruction to limited English proficient students, Title IV state grants for drug and violence prevention, Title V program to promote parental choice, and provide grants for: public charter schools; magnet schools; school counseling, study of “unhealthy school buildings, the effects of children’s exposure to violent entertainment and sexual abuse in schools;” character education, inexpensive book distribution, smaller learning communities, gifted and talented education, “Star Schools,” digital educational programs, foreign language study, physical education, community technology centers, Alaska and Native Hawaiian programs, economics education, mental health programs, arts in education, family information centers, equitable services for private school students, and Impact Aid. Title VI to assist states with the costs of developing and administering the newly-required tests and standards, regulatory flexibility. Title VII grants for Indian, Native Hawaiian and Alaska Native Education. Title VIII grants for Impact Aid. Title IX general provisions in such areas as exemption of home-schooled children from testing, student records privacy, school prayer, access to school facilities by the Boy Scouts of America, access to directory information by military recruiters, and transfer to “a safe public school” for students attending “persistently dangerous schools, or who are victims of violent crimes” in a school or on school property.

This legislation—in its early stages—did not move as rapidly as the Johnson proposal, having been introduced March 23, 2001, and signed into law in January 2002. However, the bill did move to a fast track in the fall of 2001, with the final key provisions of Title I, in particular, drafted by just four members of Congress: Senators Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Judd Gregg, R-N.H., and Representatives John Boehner, R-Ohio, and George Miller, D-California.

IV. The 1965 Debate

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, HR 2362, came to the floor of the House from the Committee on Education and Labor on March 24, 1965.

Opening Debate, March 24

House Rules Committee Chairman Congressman Ray Madden, D-Indiana, opened the debate: “Mr. Speaker, there has been a change over America. The people are beginning to find out that this is more or less a defense measure. Mr. Speaker several years ago I called up General Hershey of the Federal selective service and requested a tabulated breakdown by State of boys who were rejected in the draft on account of educational deficiencies. The startling figures…[show] about 14 or 15 states have from 25 percent to 35 percent, and some as high as 45 percent of the boys that were taken in the draft under selective service were turned back on account of educational deficiencies.”

“We are going to hear opponents get up here on this floor of this House and send out this bugaboo about turning our schools over to the Federal Government….The States will have The Birth of ESEA American Association of School Administrators Page 5 of 15 control of their schools under this bill, but the Federal Government is trying to do something to give them money so that the kids can secure a better education.”

Education and Labor Committee Chairman Adam Clayton Powell, D-N.Y., then gave the case for the Johnson bill:

“Mr. Chairman, education is the bulwark of our Great Society. We bring before you today a bill which recognizes as no bill that has ever come before this great body the importance of basic education to the maintenance of our great American heritage. When President Johnson delivered his state of the Union message at the beginning of the 89th Congress, he stressed the unique role that education must play if we are to achieve our goals of liberty, equality and union. He called attention to the fact that a nation cannot remain both ignorant and great.

“This bill before us will be legislating a basic principle—education for all of America’s children without regard for poverty, cultural deprivation or any other artificial barrier.”

Powell echoed Madden on the draft: “In one State alone, 49 percent of the young men drafted for service to their country were refused because they did not have the academic skills necessary to perform even as a private in the U.S. Army.”

Then he brought up the issue that became the focus of much of the debate: “We cannot concern ourselves only with children attending public schools. We must be interested in all children…Two years ago I introduced the concept of shared time as a means through which Federal support might be given to children attending nonpublic schools.”

Powell noted that 35 states currently had “programs in shared time or dual enrollment,” adding, “The bill does not authorize funds for the payment of private school teachers nor does it authorize the purchase of materials or equipment or the construction of facilities for private schools. It specifically prohibits any Federal funds being used for religious or sectarian purposes…Testimony taken from the leading professional organizations and church organizations agree that there has been no violation of the ‘wall’ of separation. The Justice Department has also indicated that this bill is constitutional.”

Powell also acknowledges “some fear the Federal Government might take control of education, if this bill becomes law,” and notes “the responsibility for the determination of the program and its execution belongs to the local and State educational authorities.”

He then returns to the centerpiece of the bill, Title I, which “would provide a billion dollars to strengthen educational opportunities for five million children living in families who receive less than $2,000 a year. These young Americans have been paralyzed by poverty and the educational services have neglected to fill in the gap in their educational experiences. Left unchecked, poverty’s adverse effects become chronic, contagious, often leading to delinquency and crime. In the slums the schools are overcrowded, many are obsolete and unsafe.”

A future chair of Powell’s committee, U.S. Rep. Carl Perkins, D-Ky., stated, “Although the States and local communities historically have borne the major responsibility of financing public The Birth of ESEA American Association of School Administrators Page 6 of 15 elementary and secondary schools, they no longer can do so unassisted. Property taxes, the traditional mainstay of school support, today are totally inadequate to meet the need in many areas.”

Church and State

Minnesota Republican Al Quie turned back to what would be enduring center of the debate: “Mr. Chairman, we have before us a question of church and state. This bill will provide more Federal assistance to the children of private schools than ever before. Now, the hearings show that the bill was drawn in a constitutional way according to a majority of the people who testified, and I shall grant that. However, I believe it is important that we tell the American people as well as our colleagues so that they may know what this bill will provide for private as well as public schoolchildren.”

Federal Control

Congressman William Ayres, R-Ohio: “The objective of Federal control is insidiously injected. I deplore the use of such a worthy objective as a cloak for their attempt to create the first step for bureaucratic Federal control of the education of our children…Can anyone doubt that if this ‘camel head’ is allowed to become law that the whole bureaucratic camel will soon be occupying the whole tent and our present local school administrators will be out in the cold?”

Congressman Quie: “I believe that when the Federal Government provides textbooks for every child, this puts the Federal Government awfully close to influencing and determining what is in the curriculum.”

Funding Formula

Congressman Charles Goodell, R-Ny.: “When there is given to Westchester County, the richest county in my State, $2.1 million for the same number of children that Sunflower, Miss., has, when they get $745,000, one-third the amount that Westchester County gets, I do not see how one can claim that there is anything fair about this formula.”

Quie: “The allotment formula is bad. It will give the most money to the richest states. In fact, under this formula the rich will get richer as the years go on.”

Church and State

Perkins: “These programs are under public school authority although available to deprived children to participate in. Certainly, these are public school programs.”

Goodell: “I want to know what this bill is going to do for the private school pupils, and what will be involved, as a matter of legislative history. I do not wish to have the subcommittee chairman saying that it does not give aid to a private school pupil and another man making a legislative history saying that it does. I do not think that is fair to the American people. I do not think that is fair to the private schools. I do not think it is fair to the public schools. We have a right to The Birth of ESEA American Association of School Administrators Page 7 of 15 know what is in this bill and who is going to receive what under it.” Asked if he favors assistance to “needy children in nonpublic schools,” Goodell responded, “I favor giving aid to the children in private schools to the extent that we can, constitutionally.”

“This seemed to be clearing up some when everybody seemed to agree…that these programs…were available for the public school children in the public schools and that the private school children would have to come to the public schools to get them. Then we learned from [Congressman Hugh Carey, D-N.Y.] that when he talks about public schools, he means there could be a public school program being conducted on the grounds of a private school, or a museum, or someplace that was a vacant lot…This gives an altogether different picture from what we started to get from [Chairman Powell].”

Quie: I understand that from what has been said today that as long as the public agency has title to the materials and administers it, it can be placed on the private school grounds. This the private school people ought to know so they can have this assistance if they want it.”

Powell: “That is correct. All these new techniques of teaching that are very expensive. Audiovisual, television, and tapes. You know that. These can be loaned by the local school agencies to private schools and the local school agency retains title to them. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.”

Quie: “They can put a structure on private grounds but they do not have to have wheels under it, do they?”

Perkins: “The gentleman from Minnesota keeps referring to aid to private schools. We make no provision for aid to private schools when we make provision for such special educational services to the deprived child. The gentleman referred to the definition of ‘equipment.’ If he will read the definition, he will notice that is modified by the word ‘mobile’ equipment.”

Quie: “You are saying these must be mobile structures that house them; they had better keep the wheels under the buildings?...You say in that language ‘mobile’ refers to equipment as well as educational services?”

Perkins: “Absolutely.”

Quie: “That means the structures will have to be constructed with wheels under them.”

After more discussion, Quie notes with frustration, “I am trying to find out what in the world this bill means for these [children attending private schools] individuals, who are included in this legislation.”

Local Control

Carey: I reject any notion that we bring a bill to this floor that was precooked, frozen, and untouched by the human hands of our able subcommittee, full committee and our diligent and effective staff. Through the long days and nights and weekends of hearings this bill has been The Birth of ESEA American Association of School Administrators Page 8 of 15 stethoscoped and flouroscoped and microscoped and the only things we resisted were the efforts by the minority to telescope it down to one-third its size.

“Always our eye was trained on the fixed star of preservation of our traditional system of State and local control of education…We leave to local option, as we should, the remedies and means to be used to achieve equality of excellence. Nowhere in this bill is there a Federal mandate.”

Funding Formula

Congressman Robert Griffin, R-Michigan: expresses “how unfair and inequitable the formula in the bill obviously is. The aid provided under this bill is not going to be based on whether a school district is able to adequately finance an educational program. Montgomery County, Md., for example, is the wealthiest county in the United States, where the average income is approximately $10,000 per year per family; yet Montgomery County is going to receive more than a half-milion dollars the first year for children who are already going to the best public schools in the United States.”

Local Control

Congressman John Rhodes, R-Arizona: “As chairman of the Republican policy committee, I rise in opposition to this bill. This bill, advertised as an attack upon the problems of educationally deprived children, is, instead, an assault upon State and local control of education. Its true purpose is the authorization of general Federal aid to education without regard to need. It’s clear intent, in the language of the admirable minority views contained in the committee report on the bill, ‘is to order a different power structure in education by a dramatic shift of power to the Federal level.’” Rhodes also added, “…the formula for distribution of these funds is unsound, and results in a situation in which some of the wealthiest counties in the Nation would receive more funds than some of the poorest counties.”

“Title I appears to leave approval of local programs for educationally deprived children to the State education agency, where such power belongs. However, almost hidden in the language of the bill is the power of the U.S. Commissioner of Education to require that such approval be consistent with the basic criteria established by him. This, in reality, deprives the State agency or local school authorities of any real power to shape the programs to meet local needs. This centralization of power runs throughout the entire bill.”

“It is our hope that this well-meaning, but misguided bill will be rejected so that a measure that will meet the growing educational needs without Federal interference or any constitutional problems may be enacted.”

Continuing Debate, March 25

Funding Formula

Congressman Glenn Andrews, R-Alabama: “…it has a little bit of good for everybody in it, a spoonful of dirt for every watershed. It aims at 90 percent of the school districts in the nation. The Birth of ESEA American Association of School Administrators Page 9 of 15 As wild as the shooting is in this bill, I can scarcely see how the missed 10 percent of the counties…Never have so many underprivileged children been talked about so much and helped so little as in this bill.”

Congresswoman Edith Green, D-Oregon: “I am really serious in saying to my liberal colleagues, those of you who honestly7 and sincerely have been terribly concerned about the ebvnts in Selma, concerned about the events in Mississippi during the last 2 or 3 years: Are you really shedding crocodile tears? Are we making pious statements about how awful things are and how wee really want to do something about it, and then, when we have a bill that is before the House, we do the very least for these states of any single state in the nation?”

Congressman Roman Pucinski, D-Illinois: “The tabulation shows there are poor children in every district in the country. Mrs. Green, I ask the rich to help the poor. Ten poor states will receive $330 million or one-third of the total—the other 40 states and 3 trust territories will share the remainder.”

Scope of Federal Involvement

Congressman Clark MacGregor, R-Minnesota: “the only two major provisions of this bill which I can in all good conscience support are the provisions for improving the educational research and for the continuation of the impacted aid program. These two programs are national in scope and are legitimate concerns of the federal government.”

Funding Formula

Congressman Phillip Landrum, D-Georgia: “The formula proposed for distribution of the funds authorized in the bill can be reviewed next year; can it not?”

Congressman Carlton Sickles, D-Maryland: “Yes, it can, and it is the plan of the chairman to do so”

Landrum: “Under the formula this plan for distribution of these funds is not to be construed as a permanent method of distributing these funds?”

Sickles: “That is exactly right.”

Local Control

Congressman Don Clausen, R-California: “the intervention of the Federal Government into our educational system has never been projected so boldly.”

Church and State

Goodell: “As surely as I am standing here in the well, no competent constitutional authority is going to draw the line constitutionally for public-school teachers going into private schools as to whether they are remedial teachers or non-remedial teachers of educational subjects. My friends, The Birth of ESEA American Association of School Administrators Page 10 of 15 this is befogged—intentionally, I fear, befogged—because the advocates of this bill do not wish to be specific about what can happen. So long as it is general and vague, they can keep the support of all parties, those deeply troubled on one side and those deeply troubled on the other.”

Powell: “I would like to remind the gentleman from New York [Mr. Powell] openly and publicly that his own witness who he requested to appear before us, a noted constitutional lawyer, Leo Pfeffer, said the bill was constitutional.”

Green inserted into the debate a telegram from Albert Shanker, President of the American Federation of Teachers, who wrote, “The United Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, exclusively representing all 48,000 teachers and professional staff of New York City Board of Education urges you vote against Federal aid to education bill. The measure would violate church-state separation, grant public tax fund to parochial schools, create divisiveness in America, accelerate flight of students from public schools, increase segregation in public schools, weaken our system of public education. Our 2,000 delegates from over 850 schools have overwhelmingly voted against this bill. We urge its defeat.”

Congressman Leo O’Brien, D-New York: “Mr. Chairman, the distinguished committee which brought this bill to the floor has accomplished a legislative miracle. It has achieved a delicate balance between conflicting viewpoints and it has constitutionally skirted the pitfalls which prevented aid in the past for all our children, whether in public or private schools.”

Funding Formula

Quie: “As the gentlewoman from Oregon has so well pointed out, in the State of New York each school district would receive $353 per pupil, while in Mississippi they receive $120 per pupil. All she is asking is that we make it fair and equal for everyone and that each school district receive the same amount per child.”

Congressman James O’Hara, D-Michigan: “Mr. Chairman, the real objection to this formula is that it does not recognize the difference between the level of income that means poverty in one part of this country and the income level that means poverty in another part of the country. Mr. Chairman, if $2,000 a year is poverty in the Delta, then $5,000 is ‘poor’ in Chicago and $6,000 would be ‘poor’ in New York…the formula contained in this bill right now does better by the Southern States than any formula that has ever passed this Congress…This is the best formula that could be obtained for the South and for everyone else. If we want this bill we had better protect this formula.”

Legislative Process for Bill

Goodell: “Mr. Chairman, I stand here having worked on this legislation since this Congress convened. I have seven amendments to title I…Those seven amendments, if I were to offer them, would have to be sent up to the Clerk’s desk and acted upon without a word of explanation from me and without a word of answer from anybody on this floor. Is that the way that we as a great deliberative body should decide major issues or policy? The Great Society has turned today into a great steamroller.” The Birth of ESEA American Association of School Administrators Page 11 of 15

Concluding Debate, March 26

Church and State

Green: “Since there is no limitation in the bill on how the funds can be spent for the construction of facilities and the hiring of teachers with public funds and placing them in private schools, then there is no limitation on the pressures which can be brought to bear upon the local educational agency. We may very well see the appointment or election of school board members on the basis—not of their qualifications—but on whether they are Catholic, Protestant, or Jew—or a member of the John Birch Society or a follower of Billie James Hargis. These groups may also set up their own private elementary school system with Federal funds.”

Local Control

Congressman Porter Hardy, Jr., D-Virginia: “Concentration in Washington of control over all the education machinery could be dangerous to the very fabric of our government. We must guard against this.”

Purpose of Bill

Landrum: “…we, regardless of our feeling on specific issues and details of this bill, know that the time now confronts us when something must be done to improve our support of education in our elementary and secondary schools.”

Church and State

Griffin: “It is clear that the local public educational agency cannot qualify for aid unless it does provide “special” services and arrangements in which private and parochial school children can participate. But the language of the bill is so vague and indefinite that the nature and extent of that aid is necessarily left to negotiation at the local level between public and parochial school officials….It must be apparent that the vague and indefinite language in this bill on so crucial a point is an invitation to civil war in nearly every community in this nation…Congress could provide such aid through a system of tax credits or through a junior GI bill of rights that would return federal funds to be applied toward tuition and expenses in schools. Such an approach would avoid constitutional questions and, most importantly, it would provide equality of treatment and preserve educational freedom.

Congressman Donald Rumsfeld, R-Illinois: “…does the gentleman think it is conceivable that if this bill passes, candidates may run for local boards of education or for the position of superintendent of public instruction on the basis of the type of arrangements or services or assistance they might be willing, or unwilling, to make or offer to private educational institutions?”

Griffin: “I do foresee not only the problem described by my colleague from Illinois, but I can foresee other very disturbing problems as well. In some states this bill may precipitate efforts to The Birth of ESEA American Association of School Administrators Page 12 of 15 amend state constitutions to prevent aid from going to private parochial schools. In other states, understandably, this bill will spark determined efforts to remove existing state constitutional provisions which now restrict or preclude aid to private and parochial schools.”

Green: “May I read a telegram which I have received recently? ‘The national school Board Association, composed of the 17,000 local school boards responsible for educating 95 percent of the nation’s public elementary and secondary pupils would strongly support a proposal to amend HR 2362, to incorporate a provision for judicial review. Important concerns about separation of church and state and local controls of a strong, vigorous system of public education mandate this support.’ May I add that for once and for all this Congress and the people of the United States should have a court decision and say whether it is constitutional or not…Mr. Chairman, I have three nieces and nephews that are now in parochial schools. One is a boy at the high school level which has no gymnasium in this private school and they use a nearby one on Saturdays. This is not as it should be. I have a niece and a nephew who are in the elementary schools, one in a class of 51 children and one in a class of 48. They have no music and art course, no foreign language, no school lunch program—none of the extra services which we provide in the public schools. I want those children to have the same services. I think there is a way to do it that will not create problems at the local level, and that would be to limit the public funds to the public schools, but to make them wide open to any child, and all programs and services available to any children who attend the private schools.”

O’Hara: “I would like to point out the National School Boards Association, the sender of the telegram just read, is an organization that has attempted to gut every school bill that has come before Congress since I have been here. This appears to be their latest in that series of efforts.”

Local Control

Congressman George Hansen, R-Idaho: “This House today probably will pass the administration’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965—an act I consider to be totally unnecessary, tremendously extravagant, and an unwarranted intrusion by the federal government in the educational affairs of the 50 states. The states can, Mr. Chairman, take care of their own needs….”

Church and State

Congressman John Anderson, R-Illinois: “I have asked for this time because I think an inference was left in the Record from the remarks of the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. O’Hara], that those who have today and yesterday and on the day before raised the church-state issue have done so as the enemies of this legislation and because they have a desire to gut the bill. I would point out that the record before the committee shows the representative of the American Civil Liberties Union, Mr. Speiser, representing an organization that clearly said it was for federal aid to education, had this to say about the draft of the bill we are considering today: ‘As it is written the bill could authorize the most dangerous subversion of the Constitution principle of church-state separation since James Madison’s famous remonstrance set the direction of American civil liberty in 17896’”

The Birth of ESEA American Association of School Administrators Page 13 of 15 Local Control

Goodell: “The commissioner of education can go directly to the local agency, bypassing the state completely. When amendments were offered to try to make these federal-local provisions conform to state law or state educational policy, they were turned down. They were turned down because of the precise purpose they wanted to accomplish, to bypass the state completely. They wanted to go in where the state was not, in their opinion, doing the job and do the job themselves.”

Powell: [in response to Goodell] “I commend the gentleman for his consistent support of this legislation. I assure the gentleman that his amendment will be given due consideration when this is adopted and we commence hearings on the next bill.”

Goodell: [in response to Powell] “What a fine commentary on the legislative process, that we are going to start hearings immediately on another bill to correct the mistakes we make here.”

Congressman Jack Edwards, R-Alabama: “Mr. Chairman, if we pass this bill we shall have clearly abandoned the concept of state responsibility for public education. I am reminded of the remarks of a national newspaper columnist who wrote just yesterday in another connection about a conversation he had with a prominent German professor after the downfall of Hitler. The professor was asked how it happened that he and his colleagues in education had allowed Hitler to come to office and expand his power at the expense of representative government. The professor said: ‘We were indifferent, and did not sense what was coming. We were much too concerned with our own affairs.’”

Congressman Paul Findley, R-Illinois: “This bill, sold to many of us on the appealing label of antipoverty, is the foot-in-the-door long sought by those anxious to shift responsibility for education from the state and local community to Washington. By mislabeling it an aid-to-poor students program, its proponents have finally breached this high wall of citizen resistance to general federal aid to education.”

Legislative Process for Bill

Congressman John Ashbrook, R-Ohio: “This bill is one of the worst pieces of legislation I have seen come before the Congress and its pitfalls will trouble educators, boards of education, and , indeed, communities for years to come. It also gave a striking example of the sheer, raw power of the majority party and the ruthlessness which power can manifest when it is not tempered by an adequate minority.”

Congressman Howard D. Smith, D-Virginia: “Mr. Chairman, we have been treated like a lot of robots. We have had hundreds of amendment, but we were not even able to discuss them. When they were read, there was so much noise in the chamber that no one could hear and understand them. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, very few people here in this Chamber are familiar with any of the amendments that have been voted down. Mr. Chairman, this bill has been treated like it was dropped down from heaven, that it is sacred and must not be touched. Mr. Chairman, no The Birth of ESEA American Association of School Administrators Page 14 of 15 committee, however efficient and effective, is perfect, including the near-perfect Committee on Education and Labor, the members of that committee are still human and to err is human.”

Local Control

Congressman Edwin Reinecke, R-California: “I also feel we are nationalizing education to an extent previously unheard of. Under the provisions of this bill, the Commissioner of Education becomes a virtual czar, with powers almost unlimited.”

Purpose of Bill

Sickles: “Our schools need federal aid today because they are continually being asked to do more than was required of them in the past. Our schools are being asked today not just to provide a basic education for all children, but to provide an education which will equip youngsters for a successful college career or to provide an education which will equip other youngsters for a highly competitive, skilled labor market. Our schools need federal aid today because we have reached the point in national maturity where we can no longer be satisfied with a goal of education for all, but we must strive for a goal of quality education for all. Our schools need federal aid today because in the decades to come the investment we make will determine whether we continue to be the most prosperous nation in the world, and the leader of the free world’s democracies. Historically, this country has realized that to have a strong, flourishing democracy there must be a strong, well-education citizenry go support it. As far back as 17887, when the Continental Congress declared in the Northwest Ordinance that “Schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged’ the federal government has realized its responsibility toward supporting our educational system.”

Congressman Edward Gurney, R-Florida: “Under title III, the Commissioner will get $100 million to establish model schools at the local level, possibly the first step toward a complete takeover our school system by the federal government. The commissioner has the authority to establish federal-local schools without the approval of the state education agency. In other words, in this instance, the federal government will be full in the local school business…Title I of the bill, will distribute over $1 billion of the $1.3 billion total to 90 percent of the school districts in the country, without regard to actual need. Under the remaining titles, distribution is not tailored to need, either; in fact, there is not even an attempt here to utilize the banner of poverty, although administration backers claim the bill is geared to the economically deprived child. The textbooks and instructional materials under title II, for example, are not limited to need children or poor schools, but are admittedly provided as part of a general program.”

Whereupon, all debate having concluded, a Goodell motion to recommit the bill was defeated 149-267. The bill then passed the House 263-153. Subsequently sent to the Senate, where debated centered on its Title I formula and church-state issues, HR 2362 passed, exactly as approved by the House, in a 73-18 vote April 9, 1965. President Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act April 11, 1965. Footnotes

1. Kaestle, Carl, Federal Aid to Education Since WW II: Purposes and Politics. The Birth of ESEA American Association of School Administrators Page 15 of 15 2. The Center on Education Policy, A Brief History of the Federal Role in Education, Washington, DC, 2002. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid.