The Federal Educational Policy System: Enacting and Revising Title I

• Author: David Bresnick
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/106591297903200209
• Published date: 01 June 1979
• Date: 01 June 1979
• Subject Matter: Article

THE

FEDERAL

EDUCATIONAL POLICY SYSTEM:

ENACTING

AND

REVISING TITLE

I

DAVID

BRESNICK

Baruch College,

CUhrY

If you destroy this formula today,

if

you substitute a general amendment

formula, if you take the

nioney

out

of

the poverty areas of New York City

and every other area

of

this country, then we are voting

to

liquidate the

legacy

of Lyndon

Johnson.

ITH THESE emotional words the present Governor of New York State

spoke on the floor of the House of Representatives about the Elementary

W

and Secondary Education Act of 1965 and its major funded section, Title

I

-

Compensatory Education. After

a

decade of operation, the Elementary and

Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) was the subject of major revision efforts

during the 1973 and 1974 sessions of Congress.' During the late spring

of

1973

it

became clear that the Nixon administration efforts to enact the Better Schools

Act, incorporating

a

special revenue sharing approach, was doomed. Revision of

Title

I

of

ESEA which provided aid to school districts for disadvantaged children

and accounted for the major portion of ESEA funds became

a

central priority.

The controversy over Title

I

as revised

by

the Education Amendments of 1974

struck at the heart of the coalition which had originally backed federal aid to edu-

cation. For the question raised in that session was not the level of appropriations

for Title

I,

which had annually united the old coalition which had enacted it, but

how those monies should be distributed. In

a

very real sense it pitted county against

county and state against state.

The revision

of

Title

I

provides

an

excellent opportunity for examining the dy-

namics

of

educational policy making at the federal level. The Title

I

formula

controversy provides

a

fascinating interplay of the demands

for

greater rationality

in public policy and the demands for expressing shifting power realities as inter-

preted by the guardians and the stewards of the congressional process.

THE

NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL

POLICY

SYSTEM

Education has traditionally been considered

a

matter to be left to state and

local authorities in the United States. Nonetheless

as

early

as

the Northwest Ordi-

nance of 1787, the national government required that land be reserved for schools.

The Morrill Act of 1862 made land grants to states and territories for the establish-

ment of colleges. The struggle over the establishment of the short-lived Department

of Education, at about the same time in our history, testified, nonetheless, to the

desire of national political leaders

to

limit the federal role in education.

It

was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that

a

major federal

grant pmgram for education was begun. The program, detailed in the Smith-

Hughes Act

of

1917,

was

designed to stimulate vocational education programs

throughout the country. In the post-World War

TI

period, federal aid to education

has

continued

to

increase, nurturing and nurtured

by

what may be termed the

federal educational policy system

-

those governmental and non-governmental

groups and institutions which determine national education policy.

The notion

of

policy system derives from David Easton's influential work,

The

Political System?

Easton argued that political institutions can be vicwed

as

an

'The Elementary and Secondary Education Act

of

1965

became

Public

Law

89-10.

It

was

passed in the House

as

HR

2362

on

March

26,

1965

by

a

vote

of

263-153,

17

members

not

voting. It passed the Senate

on

April

8,

1976

by avote

of

73-18.

'David Easton,

The

PoZitical

System

(New

York:

Knopf,

1953).