The+Elementary+and+Secondary+Education+Act-1965


 * The Elementary and Secondary Education Act – 1965**

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed on April 11, 1965 after being introduced only three months previous. It was the most important legislation component of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s ‘War on Poverty’ campaign. It was designed by the Commissioner of Education Francis Keppel and it allowed for the allocation of resources to assist educationally deprived children.


 * What we believed before…**

Receiving an education was a distinct privilege that was mostly given to the middle and upper class. No one thought it was necessary to go out of their way to reach the more unfortunate children or the hard to teach students. If one could not keep up in school or fluently speak the language, it was their problem. Even though it was established that children from low-income homes needed more educational support than those of wealthy homes, nothing was done until 1965.
 * What we believed after…**

Every student has a right to an education. No one deserves a chance more than another depending on his or her wealth. Finally the country realized that it makes the economy suffer to have poverty and that by not doing something to change the education of the low-income children and bilingual students that they were only allowing the process to repeat itself and even perhaps get worse. The more educated people we have in the country the better off we will be. More jobs will be created and filled, and more people will have healthy successful lives.
 * How do we still act as if we have the “old” belief?**

Although both the state and federal governments provide money to maintain public schools and transportation for all student we still treat students differently. There are still towns with better schools than others based on the taxes that are levied and the incomes of those students parents. Because the parents have more money, they can afford to send their children to higher education schools such as private schools and/or academies. The teachers have also had a harder time with the hard to teach kids, and some just give up on them. The percentage of successful children are still greatly separated by the wealth of the student. http://www.cloudnet.com/%7Eedrbsass/educationhistorytimeline.html The Elementary and Secondary School Act. Public Law 89-10 (April 11, 1965). Johnson, Lyndon B. (1966). Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, 1965 (Book 1). Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, pp. 407-408. Lazerson, Marvin (ed.) (1987). American education in the twentieth century: A documentary history. New York: Teachers College Press. Spring, Joel (1993). Conflicts of Interests: The Politics of American Education. New York: Longman. Graham, Hugh (1984). The Uncertain Triumph: Federal Education Policy in the Kennedy and Johnson Years. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
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