Department of Education

The Department of Education (DOE) is the agency of the U.S. government that administers most federal policy, funding, and oversight of education. Other federal agencies involved in education are the Department of the Interior (for Native Americans' schooling) and the Department of Defense (for the children of military personnel abroad). Like those agencies, the DOE's work centers on implementing and monitoring the policies and programs authorized by Congress and signed into law by the president. The DOE is headed by a secretary of education, who serves on the president's cabinet.

Although public schools in the United States are controlled and financed predominantly at the state and local levels, the federal government has provided an average of 6% of the funding for local school districts in recent years. However, the influence of the federal government, as executed through the DOE, extends beyond its comparatively small fiscal contributions. The DOE's four major types of involvement are elaborated below. But first, a brief history of the department is presented.

The DOE is a relative newcomer among cabinetlevel agencies. (Only the Department of Homeland Security is younger.) The DOE began operating in May 1980, 6 months after Congress authorized it by passing the U.S. Department of Education Organization Act (Public Law 96–88).

A noncabinet-level Office of Education had been in existence since 1868. Given the decentralized education system in the United States and the tradition of local governance of schools, the federal office remained small during the first half of the twentieth century. Over the years, it operated under different titles within various government agencies. The latter included the Department of the Interior and the former Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW).

Throughout the office's history, there were always some advocates for consolidating educational programs into a single federal agency and elevating it to department status. This idea gained momentum with the launch of the Soviet Union's spaceship Sputnik in 1957. National concern that America's technology and education were lagging behind those of the Russians led to unprecedented levels of federal funding to train teachers and develop curricula in mathematics and science.

Federal involvement in, and aid to, education continued to increase during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations in the 1960s, concomitant with political and social changes in the United States. These changes included the civil rights movement. school desegregation resulting from the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, the intensification of teacher unions' political activity, President Johnson's “War on Poverty,” and growing concerns for removing inequities in American society. In the 1970s, national education programs expanded further, as part of efforts to improve opportunities for racial minorities, women, people with disabilities, and English language learners. As federal investments in education surpassed the budgets of other full-fledged cabinet-level departments, the movement to create a Department of Education gained additional momentum. In 1976, with the National Education Association's endorsement, Jimmy Carter was elected president. He followed through on his campaign promise to advocate for cabinet-level status for education. And after 2 years of considerable wrangling in Congress, President Carter signed the law establishing the DOE in October 1979.

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