Papers from the Duke University Education Leadership Summit
	A Brief History of the U.S. Department of Education, 1979-2002 From a small program once shunned by the White House and attacked as an unnecessary intrusion into the workings of the nation's education systems, the Department of Education has grown into a major policy force in primary, secondary, and higher education. Mr. Stallings traces that evolution. By D. T. Stallings
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THE RESPONSIBILITY for the education of American children has enjoyed at least a small presence at the federal level since the middle of the 19th century, usually in the form of independent programs housed in separate Cabinet-level departments. Various incarnations of a national education office or bureau -- beginning with the first federal office, established in 1838 for gathering statistics -- took root slowly. Despite concerns about an overt federalization of education, locating all the disparate programs into a single, separate office and giving it departmental status became the rallying cry of a small but growing minority from as early as the Reconstruction period. The idea gained momentum in the 1950s and 1960s as the federal budget for education eclipsed the budgets of other full-fledged departments. By the 1970s, an independent, Cabinet-level department was on the verge of realization.

Establishing a Federal Department

In the period between 1908 and 1975, more than 130 bills to form a department of education were introduced.1 But it took two events to make the dream a reality: the election to the Senate of Abraham Ribicoff, a former secretary of health, education, and welfare (HEW), and the rapid politicization of the National Education Association (NEA). Sen. Ribicoff began work in earnest on the formation of a department in the 1960s. In 1972 the NEA formed a political action committee and in 1975 joined forces with other unions to form the Labor Coalition Clearinghouse (LCC) for election campaigning. Along with other members of the LCC, the NEA released "Needed: A Cabinet Department of Education" in 1975,2 but its most significant step was to endorse Jimmy Carter for President in the election of 1976. The NEA was no small player in the nomination process, and some estimates suggest that the larger LCC influenced the selection of more than 400 of the 3,000 delegates who attended the Democratic National Convention in 1976.3

NEA support helped to put Carter in the White House in 1976, but, once he was there, it was unclear whether his Administration would follow through on promises to consider Cabinet-level status for education. Education was not a top policy priority for the Carter team, and forming a new department ran counter to his platform of streamlining the federal government. After much deliberation and study, however, Carter finally made good on his campaign promise and endorsed Cabinet-level status for education.4

Sen. Ribicoff was quick to support the President's decision, and in March he co-sponsored yet another bill, the Department of Education Organization Act. The debates in the Senate Governmental Operations Committee in the winter of 1977-78 were at times acrimonious, but the bill was ultimately released to the floor, where the measure passed.5 The bill did not come up for a vote in the House during the same session, and the proceedings began all over again the following year. At last, the bill passed the House in a close vote. President Carter signed it into law on 17 October 1979, finally ending a struggle of almost 150 years.

Building and Preserving the Department

The Honorable Shirley Hufstedler, chosen by President Carter to be the first secretary of education, had by law only six months to get the department up and running. She worked quickly to establish the department's agenda, combining her own goals with a panoply of suggestions from critics and supporters alike. One set of goals focused on streamlining and strengthening the political workings of the federal/state relationship; a second set reinforced the notion that the department would not supersede local control by attempting to impose restrictive regulations; a third set focused on issues of educational equity.6 Finally, Hufstedler sought to make education important to the nation again, and she committed to spending some time going "out on the stump" across the country "to elevate the consciousness of Americans about the good work classroom teachers do."7 Overall, Hufstedler envisioned a department that "must change in response to the changing needs of the country."8 This approach set the tone for the continued growth and development of the department.

With President Carter's loss in the 1980 election, many of these goals remained unmet. It even seemed possible that the handwriting was already on the wall for the fledgling department, for Ronald Reagan had made it clear that abolishing the department, which he saw as an intrusion on local and state control of education, was high on his list of priorities.

Reagan appointed Terrel Bell to succeed Hufstedler in 1981 and charged him with the task of dismantling the department. But as the importance and usefulness of a federal role in education became clearer, the President grew more amenable to the idea of preserving the department. By the end of Bell's tenure, not only had the execution been stayed, but it seemed also that the department would remain a fixture in the Cabinet.

Reagan-era education policies were rooted in a desire to return to the original intent of the Founders. The new Administration planned to move the Department of Education away from awarding categorical grants and toward the awarding of block grants, with the goal of eventually eliminating federal grants entirely, which would cause the federal role to revert to what it had been in 1838 -- nothing more than collecting statistics. As bleak as these plans sounded, Bell noted that he still detected some support from the White House for such key programs as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), Title I, and Title III of the Higher Education Act.9 Nevertheless, by the end of the Reagan Administration, many federal programs, including Title I, had taken heavy budget cuts, and funding for block grants for special programs had been reduced by 28% over the eight-year period.10

Under Bell's guidance, the department was nevertheless able to accomplish several of the President's goals. Federal involvement in education was reduced overall, but Bell managed to keep it from falling to the level of mere statistics-gathering by retaining such controversial research programs as the Nixon-era National Institute of Education (NIE).11

These accomplishments notwithstanding, Bell's tenure will be remembered most for the publication in 1983 of A Nation at Risk. In stark language, this report described a national education system responsible for a "rising tide of mediocrity." No legislation was passed as a direct result of the document, but the conclusions did spur many states to begin the first of several waves of reform efforts. A Nation at Risk is sometimes credited with ending the long-standing threat to dissolve the department. And by 1984 discussions of Administration budget cuts no longer included mention of the department's budget, a dramatic change in White House policy. The interest raised by the report helped House Republicans discover the political power of having an education plank in their party's platform.

From Supporting Role to Leading Actor

Terrel Bell may have secured the continued existence of the department, but William Bennett, Reagan's next appointee, secured its fame. During his four years in office, Bennett crisscrossed the country delivering speeches, teaching sample lessons, critiquing the culture of higher education, espousing the virtues of a grounding in traditional Western thought, and putting education at the forefront of the national consciousness. Bennett was not convinced of the need for a Cabinet-level agency for education, but he did recognize that the department could be a tool for inspiring a national discourse on education.

Bennett came to the department with several goals in mind, among them a complete reorganization of the department and the elimination of the NIE.12 But he also brought a deeper agenda to his office. He wanted to make significant changes in the way the federal government handled student loans, going beyond a demonstrated-need clause added by Bell to include recommendations to reduce the total student-aid budget by 45%. Most significant, though, and the goal for which Bennett is probably most vividly remembered, was his determination to reintroduce the idea of a core curriculum for all schools based on Western thought.13 Many of his recommendations for and critiques of all levels of schooling incorporated his belief in the ultimate value of curricula that paid special attention to the cornerstones of Western civilization and to his own "Three C's" (content, character, and choice).

Along with Bennett's demonstration lessons and his state-by-state speeches, the department under him established a tradition of producing a steady stream of documents intended for the general public as well as for the school community. Major publications during Bennett's tenure included What Works: Research About Teaching and Learning (1986), First Lessons (1986), James Madison High School (1987), James Madison Elementary School (1988), and American Education: Making it Work (1988), the follow-up to Bell's A Nation at Risk.

Before Reagan's term drew to a close, Bennett decided to leave office so that he could be free to "speak his mind" during the coming campaign. He left behind a department that was significantly changed. Some observers believed that his confrontational manner had been responsible for preventing many education ideas from gaining momentum at the national level. For instance, in 1986 Congress was primed to overhaul the 1965 Higher Education Act, but changes were limited by what critics saw as a defensive stand against an Administration that had launched heated attacks against the legislation.14 Indeed, much legislation was passed during Bennett's term that limited the role future secretaries could play in national education policy.

Despite these changes, however, the federal role in education at all levels remained strong. For example, in the spring before Bennett's departure, Congress completed a landmark reauthorization of ESEA, the Johnson-era Great Society program that dramatically increased federal support for public schools. ESEA had undergone several reauthorizations before, but with this one, federal emphasis shifted from ensuring that states and localities complied with regulations to concentrating on the academic achievement of disadvantaged students, implicitly strengthening the federal presence in state and local programs.15

It came as some surprise when Ronald Reagan chose Lauro Cavazos, president of Texas Tech, to succeed Bennett in 1988. Cavazos was in almost every respect Bennett's polar opposite; his mild demeanor and "quiet deportment" stood in direct contrast to Bennett's forceful and often aggressive approach to dealing with Congress and educators. This change was interpreted as a calculated attempt to support the campaign image of Vice President George H. W. Bush, who promised to be the "Education President." Bush would not have to compete with Cavazos for media coverage on education issues as he might have had to with Bennett.

Three major goals defined Cavazos' tenure once Bush took office: generating public support for the national goals developed by President Bush and the governors at the landmark 1989 National Education Summit, encouraging the rights of parents to choose schools, and improving and defending the department's much-maligned student loan programs.16 Bush released a seven-part education plan in April 1989 that recommended rewarding high-achieving students and successful schools, but critics charged that the plan should have addressed low achievers and needy schools instead. Bush responded by participating in the National Governors' Association (NGA) Education Summit later that year in Charlottesville, Virginia. By 1990 the group had developed a list of six national education goals for the year 2000 (later expanded to eight goals).

During this period, the department also faced a growing crisis in the federal student loan programs. Default rates of 15% led to some $2 billion in unpaid fees annually, and the situation did not appear to be improving. Cavazos responded first by putting in place new regulations for eligibility for student loans that met with general approval. The regulations were not as stifling as some proposed earlier by Bennett, but they were stiff enough to please an edgy Congress. On the heels of the department's publication of three reports on higher education, Cavazos also asked colleges to hold down tuition increases, and he suggested that the media could help correct the misperception that most colleges were out of reach financially for many students.17

When Cavazos stepped down in December 1990, he left behind a department with a new appreciation for the plight of lower-income and minority students and a more open attitude toward working with educational institutions, especially colleges. But larger tasks, such as the preparation of the Administration's recommendations for the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, loomed on the horizon for the next secretary.

Lamar Alexander, Bush's next secretary, was expected to work not only on the Higher Education Reauthorization Act but also on the now-languishing national goals. His first immediate challenge, however, was to address growing furor over a controversial department statement that scholarships designated specifically for minorities were illegal.18 The statement followed closely on the heels of the President's veto of the Civil Rights Act of 1990, which he contended would lead to employment quotas. Alexander decided that, under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, race-specific scholarships should be considered illegal. But there were exceptions to that rule that could aid minority students, and in December 1991 the department proposed an official ban on setting aside general fund scholarship money for race-based scholarships. In response to heavy criticisms, the department delayed implementation of the ban in June 1992, and the issue was not resolved until a federal appeals panel challenged the ban in 1993.19

To address the national goals, the department developed its America 2000 plan. Within a week of taking office, Alexander presented the White House with a blueprint for national school reform that incorporated those goals as well as some of the ideas he had developed as governor and as chair of the NGA.20 He often referred to the plan as a "crusade" rather than a program, and critics and supporters alike picked up on the terminology. In addition to the six goals established by the NGA, America 2000 recommended merit pay and alternative paths to certification for teachers, a longer school year, improved adult literacy programs, national standards in core subjects and voluntary achievement tests to measure progress in those subjects, and the creation of the New American Schools Development Corporation, a private industry-sponsored think tank that would support innovative educational research. Most controversial, however, were the two components for which the federal government was to provide substantial money: the creation of 535 New American Schools and a call for school choice for parents.

Indeed, the issue of school choice became the most contentious aspect of the new plan. The choice debate had its roots in a voucher system proposal first made by economist Milton Friedman in 1955. The influential 1990 book by John Chubb and Terry Moe, Politics, Markets, and America's Schools, breathed new life into the idea. The America 2000 plan died in the Senate in 1992, but -- even without federal endorsement -- choice experiments sprang up around the country.21 Indeed, choice has turned out to be one of the more enduring education issues of the past decade.

Stepping into the New Century

The department had grown steadily since its inception and was coordinating more than 200 programs by 1993, but it had yet to benefit from long-term leadership in the top post. When President Clinton appointed former South Carolina Gov. Richard Riley to be secretary, the department's brief history suggested that he would probably remain in the position for no more than four years. Instead, Clinton became the first President to begin and end his term with the same secretary of education.

The first item on Riley's agenda was the preparation and implementation of the Administration's plan to encourage nationwide standards-based education. The Administration hoped to complete the work begun by the governors at the Charlottesville Education Summit and continued by the Bush Administration in America 2000. The result was Goals 2000, a plan for education that sought to codify all the previous work on introducing standards as part of the national education agenda. The purpose of Goals 2000 was threefold: to promote the achievement of the national education goals by the year 2000; to raise -- with the aid of high standards -- expectations for parents, teachers, and students; and to give state and local reform efforts greater flexibility and more support. The plan was built around the original six goals of the Charlottesville Summit, with two new goals added at the insistence of Congress. Despite controversy over the issue of national standards and other components of Goals 2000, the plan survived votes in the House and the Senate in the spring of 1994.

Goals 2000 marked a major shift in federal education policy toward a focus on outcomes and accountability. But it was light on content. The 1994 reauthorization of ESEA, however, provided states with not only more funds but also more guidance and less rhetoric. The Clinton Administration recommended sweeping changes to ESEA (referred to in 1994 as the Improving America's Schools Act) that would not have been possible without the passage of Goals 2000. In addition to renewing and increasing funding for such critical programs as Title I, the new ESEA continued the process of moving federal concern away from regulation and toward flexibility in the use of funding.22

The final version of the bill met with criticisms from all sides, but the greatest concern focused on the continuing push for standards-based reform. Though Secretary Riley himself acknowledged that he supported multiple measures for determining educational progress, standards-based reform became a hallmark of the Clinton Administration's educational philosophy, a trend that has continued into the current Administration.

In 1994 participants in the "Republican Revolution" once again attempted to dismantle the department. Their effort was ultimately unsuccessful, and in his 1997 State of the Union Address, President Clinton reaffirmed his Administration's commitment to the federal role in education.23 In his speech, the President outlined 10 goals for education, some of which grew out of the language of Goals 2000. The department responded by developing seven priorities, derived from the President's 10 points, and used them as a platform on which to build its strategic plan for 1997. One of the most important results of this plan and subsequent budget requests was the growth in federal support for charter schools (publicly funded schools not run under public school guidelines but held to the same standards).24 The spirit of goal-setting and reform continued at the department through the end of the Clinton Administration, culminating in a significant budget package endorsed by the President shortly before he left office that included increases for Title I and more than $1 billion for the revitalization of school buildings.

The main focus of the department during Riley's tenure was primary and secondary education, but he oversaw several important milestones in higher education as well. Early in his term, the department helped develop the Student Loan Reform Act, which allowed the federal government to make direct loans to students, and the School-to-Work Opportunity Act, which increased technology education for students who planned to enter the work force immediately after high school. The department also reduced the default rates on student loans to the lowest level ever, increased Pell grants by more than $1,000, expanded college work-study funding to more than $1 billion for the first time, and introduced higher education tax credits, which were claimed by more than 10 million families in 1999.

In 2001 Republicans returned to the White House and subsequently to the department. But the Republican Party that now directs the national education agenda is very different from the party that fought so hard to block and then abolish the department more than two decades ago. Beginning with the first President Bush, the Republican Party had added an education plank to its platform; candidate George W. Bush even called education the most important item on his agenda. In fact, Bush's first education budget called for an increase over the final budget established by the Clinton White House, which already included the largest single-year increase in education funding.25 The Administration identified as its primary goals closing the achievement gap between white students and minority and underprivileged students, reauthorizing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and developing a voucher plan to facilitate school choice. The method for implementing these plans would be tightened accountability through mandatory testing and reporting.26 Several of these proposals were direct descendants of the policies developed during Alexander's and Riley's terms.

Bush tagged fellow Texan Rod Paige to be the seventh secretary of education. The department's first task under Paige was to tackle the ever-present issues surrounding higher education loans. Contrary to Democratic fears and some Republican hopes, the department made no move to eliminate the direct-lending program begun by Clinton and Riley.27 The department also initiated a major modernization of the student-aid system to reduce loan fraud and abuse and to continue the reduction of the student loan default rate. Perhaps most important, the Administration proposed a new ceiling for Pell grants for first-year students of $5,100, an increase of more than 50% from the previous level.28

The centerpiece of the Bush Administration's efforts in 2001 was the development and eventual passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, a long-delayed reauthorization of ESEA. The four principles underlying the new law were stronger accountability for results, increased flexibility and local control, expanded options for parents and students, and dependence on proven teaching methods. The most significant component of the reauthorization plan -- and the one likely to be remembered as the most important to the future of the department -- was the requirement that all states develop "challenging state standards" that would be measured annually by state tests, which would in turn be measured against a national benchmark test.29 In exchange for these stronger accountability standards, states and localities would be granted greater spending flexibility, a proposal first floated at the NGA meeting in Charlottesville.

One of the most anticipated and hotly debated aspects of the development of the new legislation was the degree to which it would allow for the creation of vouchers. The Administration dropped the voucher idea early on in an effort to forge bipartisan compromise, but the final plan still requires school districts to accommodate the transfer of Title I students from chronically failing schools to other public or charter schools.30 President Bush signed the bill into law in January 2002, less than a year from the day he took office.

Looking Backward, Moving Forward

Since 1980 the department has brought many changes to the face of the national education debate, and it has demonstrated its resiliency and its ability to remain relevant in a rapidly changing policy arena. From a small program once shunned by the White House and attacked as an unnecessary intrusion into the workings of the nation's education systems, the department has grown into a major policy force in primary, secondary, and higher education. The humble "office" in the bowels of HEW that at one time handled only 1% of all federal expenditures on education now boasts control of some 45% of federal education outlays. Education has always been and will remain a responsibility of the states. After all, the federal government is still the smallest financial contributor to the nation's primary and secondary education efforts. But the growth of the U.S. Department of Education demonstrates that education has established itself in the national consciousness as a critical arena for federal support and leadership.

Paralleling and supporting this development has been the steady rise in interest in education among Presidents. Over the last decade, the level of interaction between the White House and the department on matters involving the national education agenda has slowly matured. The current President Bush, for example, has been much more involved in education program reauthorizations than were his predecessors, and some observers note that, for the first time, the secretary of education played just a minor role in the development and passage of several bills. Perhaps it is not so much that the secretary's role has diminished but that the role of the White House has grown. How this change will affect the continued influence of the U.S. Department of Education remains to be seen.

2. Ibid., pp. 40-41.

3. David Stephens, "President Carter, the Congress, and NEA: Creating the Department of Education," Political Science Quarterly, vol. 98, 1983, pp. 643-44.

4. Benjamin D. Stickney and Laurence R. Marcus, The Great Education Debate: Washington and the Schools (Springfield, Ill.: Charles C Thomas, 1984), p. 44.

5. Maurice R. Berube, American Presidents and Education (Westport, Conn.: Greenwich Press, 1991), p. 52.

6. George O'Neill, "Hufstedler Grasps Helm of Education Department," Phi Delta Kappan, March 1980, p. 445; Christopher Connell, "Hufstedler at the Wheel," Change, vol. 12, no. 3, 1980, pp. 40-41; and Shirley Hufstedler, "Organizing the Department of Education," in Kenneth W. Thompson, ed., The Presidency and Education (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1990), p. 40.

7. Mary Dalheim, "Shirley Hufstedler -- ED's New Head: Who Is She? What Can She Do for Education?," Instructor, vol. 90, 1980, p. 43.

8. "Interview: Shirley Hufstedler," Educational Record, vol. 61, no. 2, 1980, p. 9.

9. Terrel H. Bell, "Education Policy Development in the Reagan Administration," Phi Delta Kappan, March 1986, p. 490.

10. Antoinette Mitchell, "Historical Trends in Federal Education Policies That Target Students Placed at Risk," in Mavis G. Sanders, ed., Schooling Students Placed at Risk (Mahwah, N.J.: Erlbaum, 2000), p. 24.

11. Bell, p. 489.

12. Bennett was successful in eliminating the NIE, blending the functions of the Nixon-created institute into the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI).

13. Joel Spring, Conflict of Interests: The Politics of American Education (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1998), p. 99.

14. Robin Wilson, "Bennett's Tenure: Prominence for the Education Dept., but Alienation on Capitol Hill and the Campuses," Chronicle of Higher Education, 21 September 1988, p. A-28.

15. Mitchell, pp. 24-25.

16. Thomas J. DeLoughry, "President Directs Secretary Cavazos to Propose Remedies for 'Crisis' in Hispanics' Education," Chronicle of Higher Education, 13 December 1989, p. A-1.

17. Thomas J. DeLoughry, "Efforts by Cavazos to Curb Loan Defaults Draw Mixed Reaction," Chronicle of Higher Education, 20 June 1990, p. A-1; and idem, "Education Secretary Calls on Colleges to Hold Down Costs," Chronicle of Higher Education, 5 December 1990, p. A-1.

18. Anne C. Lewis, "Mr. Alexander Goes to Washington," Phi Delta Kappan, March 1991, pp. 492-93.

19. "Federal Court Says Schools Can Offer Scholarships to Black Students Specifically," Jet, 1 March 1993, p. 22.

20. Donna Harrington-Lueker, "All Aboard the Engine of Reform," American School Board Journal, vol. 178, no. 7, 1991, p. 14.

21. Walter Shapiro and Sam Allis, "Tough Choice," Time, 16 September 1991, pp. 54-60.

22. Mitchell, p. 30.

23. Stephen Burd, "Riley Reflects on Tenure as Longest-Serving Education Secretary," Chronicle of Higher Education, 15 December 2000, p. A-31.

24. Nick Penning, "The President's Lead on Charters," School Administrator, vol. 54, no. 7, 1997, p. 32.

25. Al Branch, "Education Secretary Paige Goes After Fraud," Curriculum Administrator, vol. 37, no. 6, 2001, p. 12.

26. Barbara Keebler, "The Man Who Promises to Leave No Child Behind," Momentum, vol. 32, no. 2, 2001, pp. 16-20; and Alan Richard and Joetta L. Sack, "Q & A: Paige on Paige: A Talk with the Secretary," Education Week, 11 July 2001, pp. 34-37.

27. Ben Gose, "Bush Administration Decides to Fight Lawsuit Brought by Lenders Against the Education Dept.," Chronicle of Higher Education, 20 April 2001, p. 42.

28. Rod Paige, "Holding Schools Accountable," Presidents & Prime Ministers, vol. 10, no. 1, p. 30; and John Gehring, "Paige Unveils Proposal to Enhance, Increase Pell Grants," Education Week, 28 February 2001, p. 21.

29. Kathy Kiely and Tamara Henry, "Will No Child Be Left Behind?," USA Today, 17 December 2001, p. 4-D.

30. Noam Schreiber, "Public Schooling -- Rod Paige Learns the Hard Way," New Republic, 2 July 2001, p. 12.

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