Reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act: Challenging the Education Industrial Complex

Abstract

From its initial enactment as part of President Johnson’s Great Society, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) has spearheaded federal involvement in local public schools. Johnson, who began his career as a teacher in a low-income community, believed that education was essential to the war on poverty and that the Great Society would be one in which “no child will go unfed, and no youngster will go unschooled” (Johnson 1964 ). However, from 1965 to today, education commentators, politicians, and policy entrepreneurs have argued about the proper federal role in education. This problem, predictably, was less of an issue when ESEA simply meant the federal government pouring money into struggling school systems. However, as outlined in Chapter 4 , No Child Left Behind (ESEA’s most recent iteration) paired assessment and accountability with those dollars, causing school district officials to recoil.KeywordsFederal GovernmentEducation ReformPolicy EntrepreneurPresident OBAMAEmpower ParentThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.