The Federal Government's Role in Public Schools
The Federal government plays an important, but limited role in the education system of our country. Make no mistake about—the Federal government’s arm is long and strong, but it does not control everything that many people think it controls. You really have to go to your state and local officials, first, if you want to make large-scale changes in your local school system.
The Federal government’s role in the nation’s school system is today framed by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, under Lyndon Johnson, then President.
The main goal of the act was to “to provide financial assistance…to local educational agencies serving areas with concentrations of children from low-income families to expand and improve their educational programs by various means (including preschool programs) which contribute particularly to meeting the special educational needs of educationally deprived children.”
So the Federal government stepped into education in this way during the Civil Rights Movement and it recognized that millions of American children were still being denied educational opportunities that would affect them for the rest of their lives and affect the competitiveness of the country if millions of its children were not getting a good education.
The Federal government also recognizes, currently, its relationships with Native American people, Native Hawaiian people, its role with the children of military families and its relationship with American territories such as Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, etc…this territories that the United States still controls.
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 was reauthorized under President Bush, in the early 2000’s as the No Child Left Behind Act and in 2015, under President Obama, as the Every Student Succeeds Act.
So we have been working under the framework set out in 1965, to basically close the gaps in our educational system and the framework has been amended and reauthorized to this very day.
The basic framework is that states don’t have to get this money, if they don’t want it they don’t have to apply for it. But, given the huge expenditures for education in each state’s budgets, state agree to apply for the Federal government’s assistance.
So the process is:
states apply for the money,
they have to agree to the terms of the grant,
they have to present evidence that have used the money in the way in which the grant was intended and
they can establish many things themselves in terms of specific implementation.
So, the current law requires states to submit a plan to the Secretary of Education, outlining how they intend to meet the requirements of the grants in very specific ways.
You can see your state’s plan on your state government’s website, in some way.
So these state plans are very detailed and they have to be submitted before they can get any initial grant from the Federal government…most states have already submitted their plans some time ago and those plans remain in effect until they are changed.
Another requirement, under the current law that is very controversial, is that states have to adopt challenging academics standards “that will be used by the State, its local educational agencies, and its schools…” The academic standards have to apply to all public schools and to all public school students.
The standards have to be in mathematics, reading or language arts, science and any other subject a state wants.
There are some guidelines that they should meet academic requirements that are in place at a state’s public university for admission, but universities cannot set the standards that the states adopt.
The states must then develop assessments and administer them to all public school students in their state.
States must then provide understandable and timely information about how students are performing and whether a student is on grade level.
States provide this information in the form of a report card that you can see at the state, school district and actual school level, in addition to providing you information about your child’s performance.
In this way, the Federal government hopes to address gaps in the education of underserved students and provide benefits to us all through educational opportunity for ALL students.
There is a lot more to the law, but you can see that the Federal government’s role is one of trying to address educational achievement gaps in our country and doing this through providing grants that states have to apply for, in order to get.
Reference
U.S. Department of Education. Every Student Succeeds Act. Accessed September 25, 2022, https://www.ed.gov/essa?src=rn