President Trump and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon have announced the elimination of the Department of Education. Education is primarily a state and local responsibility. In a previous column I talked about what do they do at the federal level. Today we are looking at the history of the Department.
The Department of Education was first established in 1867 (President Andrew Johnson) to collect information about how to establish effective schools. Local communities could use the information the department gathered to set up the schools for their town’s children.
After the Civil War every state made compulsory education mandatory, at least through eighth grade. Nebraska offers free public education (tax-funded) from kindergarten through high school graduation or age 21.
In 1890, the Morrill Act gave the Department of Education the responsibility of establishing land grant colleges, like the University of Nebraska Lincoln. The G.I. Bill in 1944 offered scholarships to colleges and trade schools for returning WWII white veterans.
In 1917, financial aid for vocational education was provided. High schools could now offer agricultural, industrial, and home economics education. The Department continues to help fund vocational education, as it is much more expensive to provide than other coursework.
President Eisenhower merged the Department of Education with the Federal Security Agency (FSA), which was responsible for social security and health programs in the nation. FSA also included the Food and Drug Administration. The new department was named Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW).
The Cold War – 1958 – saw another focus. The Soviet Union (Russia) launched Sputnik, the first satellite. The United States realized they had fallen behind, so HEW offered loans to college students to study scientific and technical fields. A major goal was science, mathematics, and foreign language instruction in our nation’s schools.
Brown vs. the Board of Education in 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional. Remember the video of Ruby Bridges from 1960? The six-year-old was the first African American child to attend the all-white public school in New Orleans. Ruby and her mother were escorted by federal marshals to the school. When they arrived, two marshals walked in front of Ruby, and two behind her. White parents kept their children home.
The 60’s and early 70’s brought civil rights legislation, including changes in schools like the one Ruby Bridges attended. Schools were integrated. Title IX meant the beginning of women’s sports and the end of other discrimination based on sex. Section 504 prohibited discrimination based on disability. Civil rights enforcement became a major focus of HEW.
The Title I program of Federal aid to disadvantaged children was passed in 1965 to address the problems of poor urban and rural areas. And in that same year, the Higher Education Act authorized assistance for postsecondary education, including financial aid programs for needy college students.
Congress in 1980 and President Carter decided to split the department again because of the tremendous number of programs HEW had to manage. The new Cabinet-level agencies: the Department of Education (ED) and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).
While ED’s programs and responsibilities have grown substantially over the years, the Department itself has not. In fact, the Department had the smallest staff of the fifteen Cabinet agencies, even though its budget is the third largest, behind only the Department of Defense and the Department of Health and Human Services.
Will the Department of Education be eliminated? It was established by Congress, so they would have to make the final decision.