School Governance

Growth of the Federal Role

Historically, the federal government has had a limited role in educational governance. During the nineteenth century, schools developed locally, and patterns of school governance and funding tended toward the use of locally elected school boards to oversee financial and curricular decisions. By the late 1800s, local school boards were well established, and local control of schools was beginning to result in discrepancies between the quality and type of education received in various districts. Governance became increasingly complicated as immigrant and Black communities began to vocalize their concerns about the inferior education their children were receiving. In this sense, local control was a two-edged sword: It allowed communities to develop and define schools around shared local values, while it also supported various discriminatory practices that left some groups, particularly Blacks and immigrant minorities, with substantially inferior educational opportunities.

The issue of racial segregation gained increasing attention throughout the early twentieth century and set the stage for increased federal involvement in educational governance beginning in the 1950s. Starting with the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, school desegregation became a federal issue. Increasing amounts of federal resources were directed toward schools in an effort to create greater equality in educational opportunity for Blacks who had been denied access to White schools.

Beyond the issue of racial equality, however, the federal government also became involved in efforts to create greater economic equality, military defensive capacity, and improved economic productivity through investment in education. For example, in the wake of Sputnik, the 1957 National Defense Education Act focused directly on science education and the need to improve curriculum and instruction so that the country [Page 676]could produce the scientists and engineers needed to strengthen national security during the Cold War. Another example of increased federal involvement was the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which created Title I. This program provided a monetary incentive for school desegregation (segregated schools could not received these funds) while also working to improve the educational experiences of poor children across the nation. In the 1970s, additional legislation such as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 focused on the rights of individuals with disabilities. Title IX, passed in 1972, mandated equal rights for women with respect to participation in athletics.

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