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chapter 4 Public School Aid 1981–2001 Ronald Reagan Public education is vital to the security and prosperity of our nation. . . . If we are to remain competitive as well as secure, we had better have educated, technically competent citizens in the coming years. —Ronald Reagan (1984) History will remember Ronald Reagan as a pivotal figure.1 In foreign and domestic policy, he dared to say what many Americans had long been thinking: that the Soviet Union was an“evil empire,”and the federal welfare state had bred a dangerous dependency. In elementary and secondary education policy, he tapped the frustrations of many Americans that children seemed to be learning less even as their parents were paying more. But history follows no script. So the former actor’s deeds could be as unpredictable as his words were consistent. The president who liberally escalated defense expenditures radically reduced nuclear weapons. The president who helped cut taxes helped increase deficits. And the president who insisted that education was a state and local issue helped ensure that it would remain a national one. “Whether he intended it or not,” National Education Association (NEA) president Mary Hatwood Futrell (1983–89) would remember,“President Reagan elevated education. We had never had that kind of visibility.” Ronald Reagan had not intended it. As a presidential candidate in 1980, he promised to abolish the Department of Education and to reduce federal spending on elementary and secondary public schools, but otherwise he had little to say about education . As president, he would institutionalize the Department of Education, increase federal spending on elementary and secondary public schools, and otherwise have a lot to say about education. The transformation of Ronald Reagan’s elementary and secondary education policies owes much to the president’s 040 ch4 (119-166) 2/16/06 10:59 AM Page 119 political acumen, ideological fervor, and oratorical brilliance. The transformation of the country’s elementary and secondary education dialogue owes much to Ronald Reagan.2 Reagan and Education After attending four schools in four years as his father, a traveling salesman, traversed the country, Ronald Reagan settled in Dixon, Illinois, for four years of high school. When he enrolled at nearby Eureka College, a Christian Church liberal arts school, Reagan became one of only 8 percent of his high school graduating class to pursue higher education. As Hollywood actor turned California governor from 1967 to 1975, Reagan increased education spending to serve larger school populations (as mandated by state law) by transferring much of the financing from property taxes to income taxes.3 The Education Department At his first press conference on January 29, 1981, President Reagan asserted that he had “not retreated from” his campaign pledges to abolish the infant Departments of Education and Energy:“I have asked . . . Secretary [Terrel] Bell of Education and Secretary Jim Edwards of Energy to reorganize to produce the most effective streamlining . . . of their departments that they can.” He added that Bell’s principal mission was to “look at the appropriate role of the federal government in education—if there is one.”4 The administration then followed two tracks: publicly advocating the abolition of the Department of Education while privately seeking to define the proper federal role in education.After Budget Director David Stockman announced that legislation to dismantle the department would reach Congress by October, Director of Cabinet Administration Craig Fuller lamented that “it is most difficult to determine whether or not there should be a Department of Education as an administrative agency until there is a consensus of what the role of the federal government should be.” As Reagan’s September 24 budget speech reiterated his determination to end the department’s “intrusion . . . into an education system that had traditionally drawn its strength from diversity, adaptability, and local control,” Bell battled “movement conservatives” within the administration who “wanted to cut every dime of federal expenditures for education.”5 The administration considered three alternatives to the department. For those whom Bell called “movement conservatives,” the first approach, restoring the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), offered the advantages of reducing the visibility of education and the influence of education interests at the federal level. The disadvantages were potential increases in bureaucracy and regulation coupled with decreases in the efficiency and competence of administration and administrators. A second option, distribution of the department’s functions throughout several federal agencies, was attractive 120 the era of education 040 ch4 (119-166) 2/16/06 10:59 AM Page 120 [18...

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