The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) provided federal financial support to children who needed it, both in public and parochial schools. John F. Kennedy began the campaign for educational aid during his presidency. Americans at this time thought the educational system needed to be improved because of cold war fears. They were concerned when the Soviet Union launched the first satellite into space. The thought that a communist country could launch a satellite first made Americans feel inferior and underschooled. Many felt the need to better educate their children.
Kennedy faced many problems while trying to get the program started. A crucial issue involved the separation of church and state. Kennedy was not opposed to providing aid to parochial schools, but because he was the first Roman Catholic to be elected president, he was advised that he could not risk a program of aid to Catholic schools in his first months in office. A fear that critics might charge that American governmental policy was being made by the pope in Rome led Kennedy to deny aid to parochial schools. The Catholic Church became angry at Kennedy’s stance, which proved problematic because Kennedy needed its support to pass the bill. Other complicated issues included whether segregated schools should receive funding, which Kennedy supported, and whether there would be federal control as a result of federal funding. The assassination of Kennedy in 1963 halted progress on the proposed bill.
President Lyndon B. Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, wanted to move beyond the Kennedy legacy by creating a Great Society, which provided something for everyone. In addition to a tax cut, medical care for the elderly, and civil rights legislation, it included better educational opportunities for all. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, in Johnson’s plan for a Great Society, included equal educational opportunities for the disadvantaged, improved libraries, and better programs for gifted and slow learners. The ESEA in Johnson’s view constituted an important component of the War on Poverty. Those who supported the measure thought that it would break the cycle of poverty.
Johnson overcame some of Kennedy’s problems with the bill by saying he refused to take it to Congress without support from the National Education Association and the National Catholic Welfare Conference, which represented public and parochial schools, respectively. Johnson did not have to deal with the issue of whether aid would go only to desegregated schools because of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which moved the process of integration along. Johnson’s last concern was with who received the money, and how the government issued the funds. He decided that aid would go only to those individuals with educational disadvantages. The schools themselves would not receive aid. This in turn allowed aid to go to students in both public and parochial schools.
Republicans originally opposed the bill because they thought Democrats were trying to rush it through Congress. After much debate, however, the House of Representatives and the Senate both voted in favor of the act by overwhelming margins. Johnson signed it four months after sending it to Congress.
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act has continued to help children who are disadvantaged, with Congress modifying the measure as new educational needs surface.
Further reading: Barbara Jordan and Elspeth Rostow, eds., The Great Society: A Twenty-Year Critique (Austin Texas: Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, 1968); Tom Wicker, JFK and LBJ (New York: William Morrow, 1968).
—Megan D. Wessel
World History
