Federal Education Policy Research Paper

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Federal Education Policy and the States, 1945-2009: A Brief Synopsis States’ Impact on Federal Education Policy Project New York State Archives, Albany, January 2006, revised November 2009 Table of Contents Preface......................................................................................................................1 Introduction..............................................................................................................5 The Eisenhower Years .............................................................................................8 The Kennedy Years................................................................................................13 The Johnson Years.................................................................................................16…show more content…
The Little Rock crisis had another outcome as well. While it assured Governor Faubus’s reputation in history as an uncompromising racist, it also spurred him to action in other areas of education policy. As historian Elizabeth Shores has noted, Faubus was much more progressive in related areas of educational reform. For example, in the mid-1950s, he pushed hard to expand opportunities for mentally, physically, and emotionally handicapped children in Arkansas, and his deputy, David Ray, later went to Washington, D.C., where he played an important role in shaping federal policy around this issue. 16 As Shores explains, Faubus supported government aid to the handicapped in part to show the world that his state was not totally backward in the realm of education. In Shore’s words, “It is clear that Orval Faubus supported the Arkansas Children’s Colony [for handicapped students] . . . and helped build political support in Arkansas for developmental disabilities services, in part to counter the world-wide negative image he earned in the Central High crisis. . . .” 17 In other words, Faubus did for disabled students what he refused to do for black students: he worked at the state level to equalize educational opportunity. As it happened,…show more content…
The combined themes of national defense and international economic competition proved remarkably durable over time as reasons to expand the federal role in education. In 1958, Congress hurriedly approved the “emergency” National Defense Education Act (NDEA), which sent an unprecedented infusion of federal funds into the public schools. According to President Eisenhower, the United States needed to outdo its foe, the Soviet Union, “on the Communists’ own terms—outmatching them in military power, general technological advance, and specialized education and research.” 18 The NDEA, therefore, targeted these areas, shoring up the nation’s educational and research facilities, fostering technical development, and trying to improve students’ academic achievement levels. In particular, federal resources under the NDEA funded programs in science, mathematics, engineering, and foreign languages. (It is worth noting that legislation for such a program had been in process even before Sputnik; the satellite simply bolstered political support for existing science- and language-related initiatives and prompted Congress to act.) While few of the nation’s schools had been seeking aid in these areas—instead, most sought federal aid for school construction
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