New and/or Enlarged Conceptions of the Relationship of the Federal Government to Education in the United States

Abstract

The enlargement and extension of Federal participation in education in the United States presents issues that are exceedingly complex. The economic and industrial changes that have taken place in American life during the last quarter of a century and their impact upon our political and fiscal structure are forcing us to reexamine our traditional method of administering and financing our schools. There is no gainsaying the fact that the present sources of school revenue in the United States are inadequate as far as providing millions of American children in various parts of the country with decent educational facilities. Due to a number of facts, such as the increasing mobility of our population, our growing interdependence, and the consequent drag of regions and groups that are culturally underprivileged on our population as a whole, the national aspects of the educational problem are becoming more and more appreciated. The immediate solution of the problem which presents itself is Federal aid to education. The Report of the National Advisory Committee on Education appointed by President Hoover emphasized the fact that the American system of education is more nearly folkmade than any system of education in the world. This is as it should be in a democracy, and the future of American democracy demands that this characteristic be preserved. Authoritarian governments can get things done in a hurry by forcing their schools to be the instruments for propagating their ideologies, but the price that is paid is altogether too great if one cherishes ideals of freedom of teaching, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion. In a democracy the people and not the government must control the schools and the means of education. Otherwise, democracy ceases to exist. From the angle of good administration, there has perhaps been too much decentralization of educational authority in the United States. No doubt there are too many separate and independent school jurisdictions, with resulting inefficiency and schooling unequal in quality throughout the land. Yet our zeal for reform and our devotion to the American ideal of equal opportunity should not hurry us in a direction from which there would be no return. By nature, parents have the first responsibility for the education of children and, consequently, the primary rights of determining the kind of education the children are to receive. The function of government is to assist the family in the performance of its educational function and not to supplant it. The autonomy that is enjoyed by school government under the American system is based on an acceptance of this fundamental principle. We boast that we have succeeded very largely