Tài liệu THE BIRTH OF HEAD START pdf

Bureau of the BudgetCommunity Action Agency Community Action Program Citizens' Crusade against Poverty Child Development Group of Mississippi Council of Economic Advisers Economic Opport

THE BIRTH OF HEAD START

Preschool Education Policies in the Kennedy

and Johnson Administrations

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

CHICAGO AND LONDON

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637

The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London

© 2005 by The University of Chicago

All rights reserved Published 2005

Includes bibliographical references and index.

isbn 0-226-85671-2 (cloth : alk paper)

1 Head Start Program (U.S.)—History 2 Project Head Start (U.S.)— History I Title.

For Daila Kuhr and Edward Vinovskis

CO N N TS

Acknowledgments / ix

List of Abbreviations / xi

Introduction / I

Changing Views of Poverty

and Early Child Development / 5

2 Education, Poverty, and Early Schooling

in the Kennedy Administration / 12

3 Education Policy, the War on Poverty, and the 1964 Election / 35

4 Organizing OED and Passing ESEA / 60

5 Implementing, Evaluating, and Improving Head Start Programs / 87

6 Congressional and Administration Debates about Transferring Head Start / 119

Conclusion / 145

Notes / 157

Index / 195

My interest in the history of early childhood education began with the study

of infant schools in early nineteenth-century America and continued with aninvestigation of the ways Puritans educated their young Many individuals,including Carl Kaestle, Dean May, and Gerald Moran, have been instrumen-tal in helping me pursue those interests over the years

The present study builds on my earlier interest in the changing patterns ofchildhood education and merges it with my increased involvement with na-tional education policy since the early1990S.As the research adviser to theOffice of Education and Research Improvement under Assistant SecretaryDiane Ravitchinthe administration of George H W Bush and Assistant Sec-retary Sharon Robinson in the Clinton administration, I had the opportunity

to research and write about early childhood education and the National cation Goals Subsequently, the Center for the Improvement of Early Read- ing Achievement at the University of Michigan under the leadership of SusanNeuman commissioned me to write an analysis of the Carter administra-tion's attempts to transfer Head Start to the U.S Department of Education inthe late1970S.

Edu-I am deeply grateful to the Spencer Foundation's Small Grant Program forfunding this investigation of Head Start's origins The grant provided fundsfor extensive travel and photocopying at archives and for the hiring of TanyaHart and Elizabeth Leimbach, who provided invaluable editorial assistance inthe early phases of the project Archivists at various libraries were extremelygenerous and helpful throughout the entire project

The University of Chicago Press was exemplary in expediting the tion of the manuscript As an editor, Robert Devens provided enthusiasticand thoughtful assistance in meeting the challenges of writing a scholarlymonograph for both policymakers and general readers Jane Zanichkowskywas a superb copyeditor, and Bonny McLaugWin ably indexed the volume.I

publica-was especially fortunate to have two outstanding outside readers EdwardZigler, one of the most astute analysts of and active participants in the earlyyears of Head Start, made excellent suggestions for improving the manu-script Barbara Beatty not only drew on her own expertise in the history ofearly childhood education but suggested the title for the book And my col-league and good friend Jeff Mirel read the entire manuscript and made excel-lent substantive and editorial suggestions

As always, the love and supportIcontinue to receive from my wife, Mary,and my son, Andy, have made the writing of the volume much easier Duringrespites from research we have managed to watch the reruns of the first fiveseasons ofBuffy the Vampire Slayer Competition from Gerry Moran on the

tennis court has reminded me of my limitations And the weekly bridgegames Mary andIplay with Barbara and Jeff Mirel have added a source ofpleasure and frustration to our lives

The book is dedicated to my older sister, Daila Kuhr, and my youngerbrother, Edward Vinovskis As we age together we are drawn more to eachother, not only as siblings but as increasingly close friends with the same her-itage and many of the same interests

Bureau of the Budget

Community Action Agency

Community Action Program

Citizens' Crusade against Poverty

Child Development Group of Mississippi Council of Economic Advisers

Economic Opportunity Act

Elementary and Secondary Education Act Family Assistance Plan

Federal Emergency Relief Administration General Accounting Office

Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Department of Housing and Urban Development Intellectual Quotient

Mississippi Action for Progress

National Defense Education Act

National Education Association

Request for Proposal Office of Research, Planning, Programs, and Evaluation Social Rehabilitation Service

Volunteers in Service to America Works Progress Administration

Project Head Start has been one of the most popular and enduring legacies ofPresident Lyndon B Johnson's Great Society Although questions remainabout the long-term effectiveness of current Head Start projects, Republicans

as well as Democrats support its expansion and improvement

One recent suggestion for improving Head Start involves enhancing its ucational focus During the2000presidential campaign, candidate George WBush recommended transferring it from the Department of Health andHuman Services to the Department of Education and emphasizing teachingliteracy skills in early childhood education programs After assuming officeand encountering considerable opposition to relocating Head Start, the Bushadministration backed away from its plans to transfer the program But Pres-ident Bush reiterated his belief that preschool education in general, and HeadStart in particular, should prepare young children to learn to read Indeed, theHead Start reauthorization legislation currently before Congress may requirethe program to emphasize academic learning and set new educational stan-dards for participating children.1

ed-As policy makers and the public debate the wisdom of moving Head Start

or increasing its focus on educational components, the program's origins arefrequently evoked to justify or explain advocacy for various policy options.For example, many policy makers contend that its founders never intended todesign a program that was primarily educational but rather a broader earlychildhood development intervention for preschoolers Unfortunately, the

scholarly literature about the origin and nature of Head Start and other earlychildhood education programs in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations

is limited and does not provide a balanced, in-depth analysis of the issue.2Helpful introductions to the development of Head Start include EdwardZigler and Susan Muenchow'sHead Start: The Inside Story of America's Most

scholarly analyses are invaluable because they build on his Washington riences and his extensive relationships with other key participants In addi-tion, Zigler and Jeanette Valentine co-edited a useful archival collection ofdocuments and reflections on the early phases titled Project Head Start: A

Other scholars have devoted surprisingly little attention to the origins ofHead Start Although some older studies of the war on poverty may include

a few pages or a chapter on the program, their authors lacked access to laterarchival and oral histories that offer additional insights.5More recent scholarsusually devote only a few pages to it, as is the case in Barbara Beatty's fine his-torical study of early childhood education.6 The comprehensive and other-wise useful new biographySarge: The Life and Times of Sargent Shriver includes

a chapter emphasizing Shriver's role in the development of Head Start butfails to acknowledge its diverse and complex origins.7Some prominent mediacolumnists are accepting and repeating this biography's interpretation of theprojecfs origins.s

A broader and deeper examination of policies toward preschools andHead Start during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations is needed Al-though much of the earlier work emphasizes the role of Sargent Shriver, theRobert Cooke Head Start Planning Committee, and early childhood develop-mentalists, it does not consider other players such as federal education offi-cials and members of Congress as thoroughly The early contributions ofcongressional Republicans and the arguments of those who favored makingHead Start a more education-oriented program, in particular, are neglected.Related developments in this period, such as Head Starfs relation to an-tipoverty programs and education-improvement initiatives, have not been ad-equately incorporated Moreover, scholars have not made full use of the files

on these subjects in the National Archives, the Kennedy and Johnson dentiallibraries, and regional archives

presi-This analysis places the origins of Head Start within the broad historicalcontext of the 1950S and early 1960s It encompasses theHdiscovery" of pov-erty, the changing perspectives on early childhood education, and the devel-opment of experimental preschool programs funded by the Ford Foundationand other sponsors This study also explores President John F Kennedy's at-

tempts to deal with poverty and education and documents his tion's plans for supporting preschools for disadvantaged children Theseefforts provided much of the subsequent advisory staff as well as the concep-tual framework for many of Johnson's Great Society programs-includingProject Head Start

administra-Drawing extensively on congressional hearings, debates, and reports, thisanalysis chronicles White House and congressional efforts to create theOffice of Economic Opportunity (OED) and Head Start At first, the Johnsonadministration and OED director Sargent Shriver focused on providing jobtraining for disadvantaged youths and empowering local community actionprograms-with little attention to early childhood education But House Re-publicans, drawing on the testimony of Urie Bronfenbrenner and other ex-perts, championed preschools during the OED's deliberations in 1964 and thepassage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965

As the educational and political value of early childhood programs came increasingly evident in late 1964 and early 1965, the Johnson administra-tion and OEO embraced preschools and created Project Head Start, fundingsummer preschool programs for more than half a million children Thisstudy therefore focuses on the program's development within the context ofthe passage and implementation of ESEA and of OEO's Follow ThroughProgram.9

be-The book also considers the challenges faced by Head Start in the secondhalf of the 1960s, including debates about the nature and control of the polit-ically controversial Mississippi Head Start programs, Head Start as an integralpart of community action programs, the degree to which it would be an edu-cation program, and congressional attempts lateinthe 1960s to transfer it tothe Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Moreover, local and na-tional evaluations of early childhood education programs as well as growingcriticisms and continued defense of Head Start are considered

This study uses information from the federal government, private tions, educational organizations, academics, and the mass media Of particu-lar help were unpublished OED, congressional, and other government docu-ments located at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, and theKennedy and Johnson libraries Previously conducted oral histories by some

founda-of the leading participants in Head Start provided additional information andinsightful after-the-fact assessments of events Specialized collections such asthe Wilbur Cohen papers at the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, theCitizen's Crusade against Poverty collection at the Walter Reuter Library inDetroit, the Peter Dominick papers at the University of Denver archives, theAlbert Quie papers at the Minnesota Historical Society in St Paul, the

4 INTRODUCTION

records at the Ford Foundation in New York City, and archives at the joseph P.Kennedy Jr Foundation in Washington, DC, provided a broader policy per-spective on the origins and development of preschools and Head Start.10The book ends by summarizing developments in preschool policy in thelate 1950S and 1960s and discussing the valuable contributions of the Kennedyand johnson administrations to the creation and implementation of HeadStart and other early childhood education programs The chapter also ana-lyzes the relation between politics and policymaking and the way in whichthat interaction may lead to adverse effects on those whom decision makersare trying to help The conclusion notes the unanticipated long-term implica-tions of some of the key decisions made during the formative years of Proj-ect Head Start-including OEO's decision to immediately provide large num-bers of disadvantaged children with underfunded services despite objectionsfrom experts as well as leading Democratic and Republican policymakers.Substantial progress has been made in helping many disadvantaged Amer-icans during the past four decades Many of those improvements have fo-cused on the elderly Despite periodic initiatives aimed at providing equal ed-ucational opportunities for all children, limited progress has been made inclosing the achievement gap between children from disadvantaged house-holds and those living in more fortunate circumstances Our inability to pro-vide high-quality, comprehensive preschool and K-3 services for disadvan-taged children has been particularly disappointing As we continue to reviewand revise Head Start, perhaps a broader and more complex analysis of itsorigins will be helpful By analyzing the deliberations of policy makers in theKennedy and johnson administrations as well as assessing the strengths andweaknesses of their initial preschool policies, we may be able to clarify andimprove the policy alternatives facing us today

Changing Views of Poverty and

Early Child Development

Educational needs in post-World War II America were enced by societal shifts For example, educators scrambled tokeep pace with demands created by the postwar baby boom.1And the tensions that developed following the 1957 launch of

influ-Sputnikby the Soviets spawned a heightened emphasis on ence and math education for more advanced and gifted stu-dents.2 The special needs of economically disadvantaged stu-dents went largely unnoticed, however.3 This trend changedwith the belated discovery of poverty in America in the early1960s The new focus on domestic policy redirected educationalreform efforts toward improving the education of children frompoor families Researchers and policy makers drew from chang-ing views of child development as they began to provide earlyeducation for disadvantaged children

sci-The Discoveryof Povertyin America

The economy grew substantially after World War II, following aslight decline between 1945 and 1950 (measured in constant 1958dollars, personal per capita income fell from $1,870 to $1,810 in

America's growing affluence was hailed by observers from varied camps.This new prosperity stimulated a baby boom, increasing the population from

152 million to 181 million between 1950 and 1960 During this period the eral interstate highway system was launched, and more Americans purchasedautomobiles Home ownership reached an all-time high as many Americansmoved from cities to newly built suburbs Further, consumers had unprece-dented access to leisure products such as televisions and fast food services such

fed-as McDonald's Medical advances such fed-as the development of a polio vaccine,together with improved nutrition, contributed to longer life expectancies.5Not everyone shared equally in this prosperity, however African Ameri-cans, Hispanics, and native Americans were still more likely to be poor and toface discrimination than were most whites, and large pockets of poverty re-mained in the South and in Appalachia For example, according to the official

1964 measure of poverty, about one in five Americans lived below the povertylevel Whereas only aboutISpercent of whites were designated as poor, al-most one-half of African Americans lived below the poverty level.6

Yet most Americans remained unaware of-or chose to ignore-theplight of those who remained in poverty; some analysts, policy makers, andpoliticians, however, made occasional mention of the pockets of poverty andeconomic backwardness.7During the 1960 presidential primary campaign inWest Virginia, for example, Appalachian poverty, a major issue, made a last-ing impression on the Democratic challenger, John F Kennedy.8 In 1962Harry Caudill publishedNight Comes to the Cumberlands, a vivid description of

the region's plight, emphasizing the suffering of poor whites as well as norities.9 Michael Harrington's 1962 bookThe Other America: Poverty in the United States also played a key role in publicizing the economic disparities in

mi-the United States.10Noting the common belief that America now was perous, Harrington highlighted the simultaneous presence of Widespreadpoverty Indeed, much of it was invisible to middle-class America.I IHe docu-mented its various forms, ranging from that affecting the elderly to thataffecting alcoholics and the mentally ill, stressing the pervasive culture ofpoverty that affected all poor individuals He also pointed out that inferior ed-ucation and absence of job skills handicapped the working poor.12

pros-Harrington's proposed solutions centered on the federal governmenfsproviding financial resources to and central coordination of the fight against

7poverty He called for a comprehensive approach-including expansion ofSocial Security, an increase in the minimum wage and the types of jobs towhich it would apply, better housing, improved medical care, and elimination

of racial prejudice Interestingly, Harrington did not highlight disadvantagedchildren"s need for improved education.13

As awareness of persistent domestic poverty rose in the1960S, other lysts explored its various forms and chronicled the plight of the poor Thefindings were usually optimistic, indicating that poverty could be eliminated

ana-in the near future Such optimism reflected growana-ing faith among academicsthat recent advances in social science provided the knowledge and tools nec-essary to improve American society.14Thus, heightened awareness of do-mestic poverty in this period, together with the belief that the nation couldeliminate it, inspired many policy makers and academics to search for moreeffective ways to help disadvantaged Americans

Changing RolesofDayCare Centers, Nursery Schools, and Kindergartens

Children in the first half of the twentieth century had little opportunity forpreschool training, in part because of the strong bias in favor of mothers car-ing for their children at home.15Indeed, the first White House Conference

on Children, held in1909, declared that home life was "the finest product ofcivilization Children should not be deprived of it except for urgent and com-pelling reasons Except in unusual circumstances, the home should not bebroken for reasons of poverty 16

Despite this bias, the number of day care centers and day nurseries grew

in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Custodial in nature,these charitable institutions were intended to provide the young children ofworking mothers both a safe haven and instruction in proper hygiene andself-control Although poor mothers welcomed another child care option,they resented the accompanying stigma of being charity recipients and inad-equate parents.17 The small number of licensed day nurseries peaked atabout seven hundred in1916but declined in the1920Sas new state-run moth-ers" pension programs emphasized home care and social work professionalscriticized day nurseries for their lax oversight of participating families.18

In the1920Sthe nursery school emerged as an attractive alternative to theday nursery Nursery schools were geared toward middle-class rather thanpoor families, however, and child development experts saw these institutions

as providing an opportunity for middle-class children to obtain better trainingand education than they received at home Many nursery schools were affili-

ated with a university, yet they served only a small number of eligible dren Although the increasingly discredited day nurseries hoped to incorpo-rate the education component as well, they could not afford to provide thesame set of services to their poorer clientele 19

chil-The Great Depression of the1930Screated hardships for many families, andthus the few remaining day nurseries endeavored to become more flexiblein

serving children and their families 20 In September1933the federal ment set an important precedent for federal involvement in early childhoodfor the economically disadvantaged by funding emergency public nurseryschools through the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) In1934

govern-this effort was transferred from FERA to the Works Progress Administration(WPA).21

At the height of operations in1937, the WPA sponsored approximatelynineteen hundred nursery schools serving forty thousand children.22 Federalinvolvement in early childhood education was justified on the basis that itprovided temporary jobs for unemployed teachers, nurses, nutritionists, andcooks The dynamics of this program proved interesting; although the WPAemphasized the education component of day nurseries, in practice the teach-ers had no training in early childhood development or education The quality

of federal services could not match that of the better private nursery schools.Federal day nurseries were short-lived, however As the nation mobilized forWorld War II and the Great Depression tapered off, the number of WPAnursery schools declined The program was abandoned in1943.23

The mobilization caused labor shortages in many sectors of the force, and women-often mothers-were recruited to staff the defense in-dustry The temporary labor shortage helped many Americans accept theidea that working mothers were patriotic, although others (such as staff ofthe u.S Children~s Bureau) opposed the entry of women into the laborforce-especially those with children under the age of two Divisions re-mained regarding the advisability of this practice, but the war emergencymitigated the most intense public hostility toward it.24

work-In response to the large-scale entry of mothers into the workforce, theCommunity Facilities Act of1941 (the Lanham Act) permitted the federalgovernment to fund child care centers; approximately six hundred thousandchildren participated in such programs between1942and1946.25 Many of theLanham Act centers replaced WPA institutions, and a few defense industrieseven provided their own day care facilities Although most mothers relied onrelatives or neighbors for child care, some took advantage of these additionalday nurseries.26

Following the postwar demobilization, the Lanham Act was repealed and

the federal government ceased to fund day care centers Although many cilities closed, some survived because the cities and states where they oper-ated continued to fund them The postwar day care situation resembled that

fa-of the1920S: most working mothers relied on friends and relatives for tance and a small minority utilized day nurseries or nursery schools Postwarsociety, however, nurtured a gradual acceptance of the idea that marriedwomen could work outside the home and that their young children mightbenefit from enrollment in good child care centers.27

assis-Although the first half of the twentieth century saw much debate aboutthe benefits and detriments of day nurseries and nursery schools, kinder-garten was becoming an acceptable component of education and was beingincorporated into public school systems In fact, the number of kindergartenstudents rose from 481,000in1920to723,000in1930and, following a slightdecline during the depression, reached one million in1950and two million

by1960.28The nature of these institutions varied considerably, and few sembled the more rigid model initially prescribed by Friedrich Froebel andhis American followers Most kindergartens operated for only half a day andfocused on play and social activities rather than improving cognitive skills.29This was not unusual On the whole, most early twentieth-century day nurs-eries, nursery schools, and kindergartens did not emphasize cognitive im-provement Instead, these institutions usually offered custodial care for thechildren of working mothers

re-Changing ViewsofChildDevelopment

Until the mid-twentieth century, leading child development and testing perts assumed that IQ was hereditary and fixed at birth Moreover, most ex-perts held that children's learning depended on their physical and mentalmaturation and that there was little point in trying to increase IQ by means ofearly childhood education Thus, their analyses focused on groups ratherthan individuals, and reports detailed intergroup differences in IQ.30

ex-A few child developmentalists demurred from this consensus The tists at the University of Iowa's Child Welfare Research Station, for example,challenged the idea that a child's IQ was innate, constant, and incapable ofenhancement Bird T Baldwin, director of the Iowa Station, felt that earlychildhood training was valuable and established a laboratory to measurepreschool children's mental and physical development In1927, as a result ofhis research, Baldwin called for a nationwide system of preschools to helpchildren develop to their full potential During the and early Uni-

scien-versity of Iowa scientists such as Kurt Lewin, George Stoddard, and BethWellman continued to challenge the idea of a hereditary, constant IQ, butthey were unable to persuade colleagues at other institutions.31

In fact, prominent scholars such as Florence Goodenough and Lewis M.Terman attacked the work of the Iowa scientists Not only did they reject theidea that IQ was not predetermined at birth, but they criticized the statisticalmethods employed in the Iowa studies.32Thus, dissenting research was sup-pressed and the prevailing view that IQ remains constant over time and thatchildren's learning depends on maturation dominated the field of child devel-opment during the first half of the century

Donald O Hebb issued a major challenge to the fixed-IQ orthodoxy in

1949 when he published the ground-breaking bookThe Organization of ior Hebb stressed that differences in IQ stemmed in large part from differ-

Behav-ences in early learning and environment rather than from variations amongbrains-a theory that accounted for most of the disparity between whitesand African Americans on standardized intelligence tests.33

In the 1950S and early 1960s academics' and policy makers' view of earlychildhood development and education shifted dramatically Scholars such as

J. McVicker Hunt and Benjamin S Bloom argued that children's intelligencewas not fixed at birth and could be significantly altered by improving their en-vironment In 1961 Hunt published his seminal bookIntelligence and Experi- ences He accepted the biological inheritance theory but argued that chil-

dren's experiences also influenced their intellectual development.34As Huntlater summarized his approach: "Man's nature has not changed since WorldWar II, but some of our conceptions of his nature have been changingrapidly These changes make sensible the hope that, with improved under-standing of early experience, we might counteract some of the worst effects

of cultural deprivation and raise substantially the average level of intellectualcapacity."35

This new approach, according to Hunt, was essential for overcoming thecultural deprivation of economically disadvantaged children-in part by de-veloping effective preschool programs:

The intellectual inferiority apparent among so many children of parents

of low educational and socioeconomic status, regardless of race, is alreadyevident by the time they begin kindergarten or first grade at age5or6 These deficiencies give such children the poor start which so commonlyhandicaps them ever after in scholastic competition

At this stage of history and knowledge, no one can blueprint a program

of preschool enrichment that will with certainty be an effective antidote

for the cultural deprivation of children On the other hand, the ary changes taking place in the traditional beliefs about the development ofhuman capacity and motivation make it sensible to hope that a program ofpreschool enrichment may ultimately be made effective The task calls forcreative innovations and careful evaluative studies of their effectiveness.36Using eight longitudinal studies of children's physical, mental, and psy-chological development, Bloom supported Hunes assertion that both envi-ronment and heredity played a key role in establishing IQ He emphasized thefirst four years of life in particular as the "critical period" for a child's intellec-tual development: "Thus height growth for boys is almost as great during the

revolution-9 months from conception to birth as it is during the revolution-9 years from age3to age

12 General intelligence appears to develop as much from conception to age 4

as it does during the 14 years from age 4 to age 18."37 Yet, reinforcing Hunesearlier warnings, Bloom pointed out that experts could not pinpoint thestrategies or specific programs that helped disadvantaged children learnmore effectively-in large part because they did not understand the nature ofearly learning among humans.38

Hunt and Bloom produced some of the earliest and most effective ments for early childhood education in the late 1950S and early 1960s Theirwork provided much of the scientific justification for the Head Start pro-gram But other scholars, drawing on their own work as well as the "discov-ery" of poverty in America, also contributed to the growing interest in earlyeducation and compensatory schooling programs.39Meetings such as theArden House Conference on the Preschool Environment of Socially Disad-vantaged Children in 1962 and the University of Chicago's Research Confer-ence on the Education of the Culturally Deprived in 1964 grappled with theissue of poverty and the difficulties faced by poor children in school.40

argu-During this period, researchers piloted experimental programs designed

to enrich the intellectual experiences of disadvantaged children in cities such

as Nashville, New York, and Syracuse.41 And the Ford Foundation, amongother nonprofit organizations, played a key role in funding education projectsdesigned to address the broader concerns of poverty and community devel-opment by means of its Great Cities Schools Program Two Ford Foundationprojects, one in Baltimore and one in North Carolina, even developedpreschool programs to meet the needs of disadvantaged children.42Theseefforts contributed to a new awareness that it might be possible to enhance

IQ by focusing on improving the learning environment And these activitiesset the stage for the launch of Head Start in the mid-1960s

Education, Poverty, and Early Schooling

in the Kennedy Administration

Most studies of Head Start begin by examining the role of theJohnson administration in early childhood development and edu-cation That approach, however, overlooks the Kennedy admin-istration's substantial contributions to K-12schooling, povertyelimination, and early childhood education Moreover, severalkey Johnson poverty and education policy analysts servedintheKennedy White House, and many of the proposals initiated dur-ing the Kennedy administration to address these issues were re-vised and incorporated into Johnson's war on poverty

Early Federal Involvement in Education

Although the u.S Constitution does not directly mention a eral role in education, the government has periodically encour-aged schools or helped finance them The federal governmentparticipated in local education even before the1787drafting ofthe Constitution, when the Congress of the Confederationadopted the Survey Ordinance of1785,reserving one section ofevery township in the Western Territory for establishment of

fed-schools In1787the authors of the Northwest Ordinance declared that gion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and thehappiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever beencouraged."l During the Civil War, Congress enacted the Morrill Act, allo-cating federal land to each state so that states could establish colleges to pro-vide training in agricultural and mechanical arts (the "land-grant colleges").Congress expanded this legislation in1890to help fund the operation of thosecolleges and amended the Morrill Act again in1907and1935to increase thosesubsidies.2

"reli-Although a federal noncabinet-Ievel Department of Education was ated in1867,it was reduced to the Bureau of Education in1868(later reorga-nized as the Office of Education) owing to controversy about its operationand responsibilities The agency remained quite small, and it focused on col-lecting, analyzing, and disseminating statistical information It was also re-sponsible for such miscellaneous tasks as overseeing education in the AlaskaTerritory Oversight of the Office of Education was transferred to the De-partment of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) when this agency wascreated in1954.3

cDuring the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Congress sisted most requests for federal aid for public education There were, how-ever, a few notable exceptions to this trend Congress passed the Smith-Hughes Act in1917to support courses and teacher training in agriculture,home economics, and trades and industries During the Great Depression thePublic Works Administration provided school construction assistance, andthe Federal Emergency Relief Administration funded adult education andnursery school programs The1940 Lanham Act authorized federal aid tocommunities with significant military and defense industry populations (TheLanham Act preceded the1950S"impacted" areas aid.) And the1944Service-men's Readjustment Act (GI Bill of Rights) provided educational benefits toveterans.4

re-During both world wars, worries about high illiteracy rates amongdraftees as well as concern about the uneven quality of state and regional ed-ucation led to calls for general federal educational aid for schools in statesthat lacked adequate resources These attempts, usually led by the Demo-crats and the National Education Association (NEA), received a major boost

in1946when the conservative senator Robert A Taft (R-OH) dropped his position and called for general school aid In1948both party platforms en-dorsed federal aid for education Although the Senate managed to pass legis-lation approving general school aid several times in the late1940Sand1950S,

op-controversies about aiding private schools and funding segregated

institu-14 CHAPTER TWO

tions, together with fear of federal control over local education, doomedmost of those proposals They fared especially poorly in the House of Repre-sentatives, where a powerful, conservative Rules Committee scuttled mostsuch initiatives.5

Despite these hurdles, federal aid to education after World War II creased during the Truman administration from$292million in fiscal year

in-1945to a peak of$3.3billion in fiscal year1949,dropping to $2billion in fiscalyear1952. During those eight years, the federal government spent a total of

$17.7billion on education Elementary and secondary schools received only7

percent of this total, however (and almost two-thirds of this amount was neled through the1946National School Lunch program) In fact, about one-half of total federal education support went to higher education (with veter-ansJ

fun-benefits-via the GI Bill of Rights-accounting for90percent of suchexpenditures).6

Educational Involvement during the Eisenhower Administration

The administration of Dwight D Eisenhower expanded federal educationalinvolvement in several areas while reducing the overall federal financial in-vestment Although Eisenhower had opposed general federal aid to educa-tion in1949,he endorsed classroom construction assistance during his1952

presidential campaign.7

.The new areas of federal involvement were varied The Agricultural Act

of1954authorized the supply of milk to nonprofit schools, summer ·camps,and certain childcare programs Despite Eisenhowees opposition, the impactaid program was not only continued but considerably expanded in scope andfunding In1950Congress designated funds with which the National ScienceFoundation could support research In addition, Congress passed legislation

in1954creating the Cooperative Research Program, which allowed the Office

of Education to enter into cooperative agreements or contracts with collegesand universities for joint studies of education issues The largest federal edu-cation initiative during the Eisenhower era, however, was the National De-fense Education Act (NDEA) of1958. This legislation was developed in re-sponse to the SovietsJ

successful launch ofSputnika year earlier The NDEAprogram endeavored to bolster science, mathematics, and foreign languageinstruction at all grade levels It also set an important precedent for federal in-volvement in education that meets broadly defined national defense needs.8Even when measured in current dollars and considering its expansion innew areas of education, the federal government spent less money on educa-

tion during the Eisenhower administration than did the Truman tion($14.7billion and$17.7billion, respectively) There were also significantshifts in the ways those funds were spent Although Eisenhower extended GIeducational benefits to Korean War veterans, the share of monies spent onveteran education between1952and1960declined from more than one-half

administra-of all federal education expenditures to less than one-quarter Federal mentary and secondary spending increased from$1.2billion to$4.5billion As

ele-a result of these shifts, the federele-al government ele-allocele-ated31percent of its cation funding to elementary and secondary education.9

edu-Federal support for higher education fell from $10billion in the Trumanadministration to$7.4billion in the Eisenhower administration, mainly be-cause aid to veterans in colleges and universities dropped from$9billion to

$3.2billion Research and development funding, however, rose, and assistance

to college and university facilities grew Aid to college students also increasedduring this period from$64to$710million Overall, the relative amount ofsupport for higher education dropped from57to50percent of federal aid 10Lawmakers had numerous hurdles to overcome when implementingthese changes Lukewarm White House support for classroom construction,Republicans~andconservatives~hostility to an expanded federal involvement,northernliberals~insistence on desegregating southern schools, and Protes-tants~opposition to sharing federal funds with Catholic parochial schools lim-ited federal education initiatives 11

Education in the 1960 Presidential Election

Republicans and Democrats brought disparate strengths and weaknesses tothe table in the1960presidential campaign The GOP benefited from Eisen-hower~seight years of high approval ratings, but they were weakened by de-cisive losses in other Eisenhower-era political contests Particularly disheart-ening was the Democratic sweep of the1958midterm elections-the mostsuccessful Democratic election since Roosevelfs1936landslide victory Dem-ocrats gained48seats in the House andISseats in the Senate, resulting in im-pressive majorities of282to154and64to34,respectively.12 Following a brief,disappointing exploratory campaign, New York governor Nelson Rockefellerdropped out of the race for the Republican nomination, and the party se-lected then Vice President Richard M Nixon as their presidential standard-bearer United States ambassador Henry Lodge was chosen as his runningmate 13

Democrats sensed an opportunity to recapture the White House, and four

major contenders, all senators, vied for the Democratic nomination: Hubert

H Humphrey of Minnesota, John F Kennedy of Massachusetts, Stuart mington of Missouri, and Lyndon B Johnson of Texas Only Humphrey andKennedy entered the primaries; Symington and Johnson staked their hopes

Sy-on a deadlocked cSy-onventiSy-on that might then offer Sy-one of them the tion Although Kennedy's Catholicism dominated preconvention debates andanalyses, a series of hard-fought primary victories caused Humphrey to with-draw after a loss in West Virginia Kennedy was nominated on the first ballot

nomina-at the Los Angeles convention, where he surprised many politicians and erals by naming Senate Majority Leader Johnson as his running mate-part

lib-of his fall strategy to win the South 14

Nominations secure, Kennedy and Nixon turned their attention towardthe November elections Although much of the contest between them fo-cused on religion and the importance of prior experience in the WhiteHouse, differences regarding education surfaced as well A September1959

poll revealed that voters trusted Democrats' handling of education morethan Republicans' by a margin of31percent to12percent(45percent saw nodifference).15 During deliberations on an education bill in February 1960,

Democrats maneuvered Vice President Nixon into casting the tie-breakingvote against an amendment offered by Senator Joseph S Clark Jr (D-PA) toprovide $1.1 billion in federal funds for school construction and teachers'salaries 16 Although the public favored the former, most opposed the latter 17After his nomination, Nixon countered the Democratic attacks on his ed-ucation policies, shaping the GOP platform to endorse federal aid for ele-mentary and secondary school construction but opposing assistance forteachers' salaries 18 The Democratic platform, however, argued that Ameri-can education faced a financial crisis necessitating federal intervention includ-ing both types of aid 19

During the campaign, Kennedy and Nixon raised the issue of educationseveral times TheNew York Herald Tribune surveyed both candidates on seven

key education issues that highlighted their differences The survey focused pecially on federal aid for teachers' salaries.20 Kennedy frequently pointedout that Republicans had voted against school construction bills and re-minded voters that Nixon cast the "tie-breaking vote killing a Democratic billgiving states money to raise teachers' salaries."21 During the first debate,Nixon rebutted Democratic calls for salary assistance, warning viewers that

es-"we want higher teachers' salaries; we need higher teachers' salaries; but wealso want our education to be free of federal control When the federal gov-ernment gets the power to pay teachers, inevitably, in my opinion, it will ac-quire the power to set standards and to tell the teachers what to teach."22

Although education was discussed frequently, neither candidate raised theissue of preschools during the campaign For example, when Nixon referred

to early schooling, he mentioned kindergartens but not preschools.23Instead,the candidates focused more on providing aid to public elementary and sec-ondary schools via federal subsidies for construction and salaries-issues thathad been debated throughout the1950S 24

The 1960election was one of the closest in American history Kennedymanaged a narrow popular vote victory of34,221,349to34,108,546.But he car-ried the electoral college by a decisive vote of303to219 25 Religion played asignificant role in determining whom voters supported: some normallyDemocratic Protestants, especially in the South and the Midwest, voted forNixon, and some GOP Catholics in the industrial Northeast crossed partylines and voted for Kennedy One scholar concluded that, overall, Kennedy'sreligion cost him popular votes but aided him in the electoral college.26Dem-ocrats recaptured the White House, but Republicans gained20seats in theHouse and2 seats in the Senate These modest gains, however, did notthreaten the solid Democratic majority of263to174in the House and64to36

in the Senate.27

The Kennedy Administration and K-12 Education

Although he had a high IQ, John Kennedy's student years were not marked

by academic excellence Kennedy was more interested in social and ricular activities than in his studies Following a mediocre academic perfor-mance in his first two years at Harvard University, however, he became inter-ested in international affairs-partly because he spent time abroad with hisfather, who had been appointed the U.S ambassador to Great Britain This in-terest provided the motivation for his honors thesis about the English ap-peasement of Hitler; hastily and poorly written,itnonetheless reflected con-siderable research and contained some interesting insights With helpfuladvice from theNew York Times'Arthur Krock and others, Kennedy revisedand published his timely study asWhy England Slept.28

extracur-When Kennedy was sent to Congress in 1946, he was assigned to theHouse Education and Labor Committee; after election to the Senate in1952,

he served on the Labor and Public Welfare Committee, which had tion over education Despite these assignments, his involvement in educationwas modest during most of his tenure in Congress He often focused more

jurisdic-on the interests of his cjurisdic-onstituents than jurisdic-on those of the natijurisdic-on as a whole.But as he prepared for a possible presidential campaign after1956, Kennedy

began to address education issues more broadly and supported increased eral involvement in public schools.29

fed-Following the 1960victory, the incoming Kennedy administration nounced its cabinet members and top White House staffby mid-December.The cabinet was ideologically mixed and included several prominent Repub-licans Connecticut governor Abraham Ribicoff was named Secretary ofHEW but was regarded as an ineffective administrator.3oRibicoffheaded thisdepartment for less than two years, leaving to run-successfully-for a Senateseat Thus, much of Kennedy's congressional education agenda was handled

an-by White House Special Counsel Ted Sorensen, Deputy Special Counsel forBudget and Programming Myer (Mike) Feldman, and HEW's assistant secre-tary for legislation, Wilbur Cohen.31The Bureau of the Budget (BOB), underthe leadership of David E Bell, also played a large role in the drafting and vet-ting of Kennedy administration education initiatives.32Unlike Eisenhower,Kennedy did not appoint a chief of staff or delegate much authority outsidethe White House The cabinet usually met only once a month as a group anddid not playa significant role in decision making.33

Many of the new administration's policies had been formulated and nounced during the campaign Kennedy created seven task forces (eventuallyexpanded to twenty-nine) to assist in transition-stage policy planning Mosttask force reports appeared in newspapers; eleven of them were alsoreprinted in a1961book,New Frontiers of the Kennedy Administration 34TheEducation Task Force recommended that "first priority be given to a vig-orous program to lift the [public] schools to a new level of excellence." Onthe basis of the average daily attendance in public schools, the task force sug-gested that the federal government provide$30per annum per child to allstates, an additional$20per child to states with personal income below70

an-percent of the national average, and$20more per child to cities with tions exceeding300,000"which are facing unique and grave educational prob-lems." It recommended that these monies be used for school construction,salaries, and educational improvements.35

popula-The Education Task Force also called for expanding the federal collegehousing loan program, providing grants and loans for academic facilities forinstitutions of higher education, extending for another five years the Na-tional Defense Education Act (with some modifications), creating a Presi-dent's Advisory Committee, taking steps to facilitate fundraising, and cover-ing the indirect costs of research in higher education.36

The task force released its influential policy recommendations on January

6, 1961, but the report did not attract immediate Widespread public tion.37 Less than two weeks later, however-and only three days beforeKennedy's inauguration-Catholic leaders such as Cardinal Francis Spellman

denounced the report as "unfair to most parents of the nation's 6,800,000

parochial and private school children."38 Kennedy, who had campaigned on aplatform federal aid for public elementary and secondary schools only, nowfaced a difficult dilemma: drafting a politically acceptable legislative packagefor education aid 39

Kennedy met the challenge head-on, making education one of his top fivelegislative priorities.40 He set forth his education agenda in a special February

20,1961,message to Congress.41 His proposals were based largely on the to-education bill (S.8)of Senator Patrick McNamara (D-MI), which the Sen-ate had passed in1960.42 The administration's initiative slated$2.3billion foreducation over three years Funds were earmarked primarily for publicschool teachers' salaries and classroom construction, with special emphasisgiven to assistance for financially impoverished states and depressed urbanareas Kennedy's education package would also authorize loans of$2.8bil-lion over five years for college and university construction and$892millionfor four-year federal need and merit scholarships for college students.43

aid-In his education message, Kennedy made it clear that federal funding forelementary and secondary schools would be limited to public schools.44 Pri-vately he indicated that he would be willing to allocate federal monies to pri-vate schools as well, but he shrank from acknowledging this publicly because

it contradicted his campaign pledge.45

The Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare opened hearings onthe administration's school-aid bill (S.1021)on March8.Committee chairmanWayne Morse (D-OR) skillfully guided the debates, minimizing disagree-ments about the controversial decision to withhold federal assistance fromprivate schools The hearings in the House, however, were more acrimo-nious Adam Clayton Powell (D-NY), the new chair of the House Committee

on Education and Labor, antagonized GOP members with his plans to ganize the committee and split the oversight of the legislation (H.R 4970)

reor-among three subcommittees The House school-aid hearings were more tentious than the Senate hearings, and it was clear that the legislation was inserious trouble 46

con-In the face of continued Catholic opposition to the public-school-only vision, the White House and Congress sought to find an acceptable compro-mise On April26, 1961,Kennedy recommended extension and expansion ofNDEA because it provided aid for nonpublic schools He hinted that otherproposals addressing the concerns of Catholic and private schools might beadded to the act as well The White House hoped that the proposed expan-sion would be acceptable to proponents of aid to private schools and facili-tate passage of the bill

pro-On May the Senate Labor Committee reported S.1021out of committee

by a12-2vote When it reached the Senate floor considerable debate ensuedabout funding for segregated schools, modifying the state equalization for-mula, offering states tax rebates rather than direct aid, and expanding thescope of federal aid to education Barry Goldwater (R-AZ), who opposedgeneral federal aid to education, proposed an amendment that would pro-vide loans for private elementary and secondary school construction Theamendment was rejected by more than a2-1margin However, the final billpassed the Senate by a49-34vote.47

Following Senate passage, attention shifted to the House version of thebill The House General Education Subcommittee approved the administra-tion's bill (H.R.4970)by a5-3vote, and the full House Education and LaborCommittee reported out a clean bill (H.R.7300)on an18-13vote, sending it

to the House floor for consideration The partisan divisions within the Housewith regard to the legislation were evident; GOP members unanimously op-posed the bill.48

Before the House could act on the bill, however, the Rules Committee had

to issue a rule allowing the bill to proceed This committee, which had feated similar measures in previous years, had been expanded and reorga-nized in the Eighty-Seventh Congress in order to overcome such historic ob-stacles.49But divisive fights regarding federal aid to church-sponsored schoolsinspired a coalition of Republicans and southern Democrats to withhold theruling necessary to allow the administration's bills to proceed The RulesCommittee rejected the school-aid bill as well as the NDEA legislation (H.R

de-7904)on an8-7vote.50Catholic representative JamesJ.Delaney (D-NY) castthe deciding vote after complaining about the lack of assistance for privateschools.51

In reviewing this period of education history, some writers emphasize theCatholic hierarchy's opposition to public school aid as a key factor in the de-feat of the School Assistance Act of1961(S.1021).The most thorough educa-tion policy analyst, LawrenceJ.McAndrews, disagrees, however, pointing in-stead to the inability of Catholic lobbies to strongly impact most legislators.All of the Catholic Democrats on the House Education and Labor Commit-tee, for example, supported the legislation, and the Republican membersdownplayed the church-state controversy Many opponents of aid were moreupset when liberal Democrats expanded the legislation to make permanentthe federal government's role in education rather than restricting it to a tem-porary response to a specific educational emergency In addition to these pro-visions, the bill called for support for teachers' salaries, which many members

of Congress and the public continued to oppose.52

After the Rules Committee blocked movement of H.R 7904,school-aid

proponents employed a little-used mechanism, the "Calendar Wednesday"procedure, to move the revised school-aid bill (H.R 8890), which now ex-cluded the controversial teachers' salary provision, to the House floor TheCalendar Wednesday procedure required the legislation to win only a major-ity vote but necessitated that action on the bill be completed within one day.

In practice, it would have been easy to delay action School-aid opponents feltthat they could defeat the proposal easily, however, and so they allowed it toproceed expeditiously The revised bill disappointed even former federalschool-aid supporters, and it was defeated by a 242- 170 vote.53

The administration expressed considerable frustration about the defeat ofits education legislation At a press conference held after the House actions,Kennedy complained that "everyone is for education, but they are all for adifferent education bill So it is going to require a good deal of good will

on all sides, because the only one who loses today is not the Administration,but the school children who need this assistance."54

ANew York Times editorial blamed both Republicans and Democrats forthe failure of the initiatives But in particular it castigated the Kennedy ad-ministration's handling of the legislation.55 After analyzing the defeat of theadministration's K-12 school bill in 1961, McAndrews concluded: "Kennedyentered the White House faced with a smorgasbord of choices in educationand, in his first year, too frequently selected the least palatable He deftly or-chestrated a necessary compromise on race, but clumsily maneuvered anunnecessary compromise on religion His most important concessions, onthe salary and permanent support questions, came belatedly and heavy-handedly." 56

In an effort to salvage the impact aid and NDEA reauthorizations, sentative Powell called for a simple two-year extension for both programsusing the "suspension of rules" procedure, which required a two-thirds ma-jority The administration wanted only a one-year extension so that Congresswould be pressured to pass education legislation in 1962, but this plan wasthwarted by GOP opposition.57 The House enacted the two-year extension(H.R 9000) on a 378-32 vote, and the Senate passed a similar version (S 2393)the following week.58

Repre-In the wake of major defeats for Kennedy education bills and in tion of upcoming midterm elections, policy makers such as HEW secretaryRibicoff recommended that the White House postpone further action on ed-ucation legislation until 1963.59 But in his State of the Union Address on Janu-aryI,1962, Kennedy proposed an education program that was more ambi-tious than the previous programs-including federal assistance for publicschool construction and teachers' salaries.60

anticipa-Kennedy provided additional details of his education initiatives the ing month in a special message to Congress He reiterated his call for federalfunds for construction as well as salaries He also outlined a new proposal toimprove teacher quality and discussed assistance for collegeconstructi~nandstudent scholarships, funds for medical and dental assistance, and support forscientists and engineers His proposal recommended programs to reduceadult illiteracy, educate migrant workers, and aid handicapped students Fur-ther, he called for monies to construct nonprofit educational television sta-tions and create a federal advisory council to aid the arts.61

follow-Kennedy's1962education agenda did not fare well Initially, it appearedthat Congress might be willing to act on a college-aid bill The House and theSenate passed different versions of the legislation, however; the conferencecommittee could not agree about whether grants or loans should be pro-vided for academic facility construction and student scholarships Asmidterm elections neared, partisan and religious divisions intruded and pre-vented any compromise.62

Despite calls by the White House for the passage of a general aid bill forelementary and secondary schools, Congress did not want to revisit the con-tentious issues of1961.The administration was hampered by its own disorga-nization-Ribicoffleft in July1962to run for the Senate, in part because hispolitical advice about education legislation had been ignored Although theHouse Education and Labor General Subcommittee held hearings on theproposed legislation (H.R.10180),it did not act on the bill, and the Senate didnot address the issue.63Only one minor education bill, the authorization offederal aid for educational television facilities, passed The administration'sother new proposals all failed.64

Seeking a New Approach, Including Preschool Support

The1961and1962defeats of Kennedy's education proposals encouraged theadministration to explore new approaches to packaging improvements toAmerican schools Of particular importance was the suggestion by the BOB

to develop more targeted federal education initiatives The bureau mended consolidating all education projects within an omnibus bill in hopes

recom-of uniting the diverse but recom-often competing advocates recom-of federal aid to tion

educa-In October1962the BOB staff recommended a bill that encompassed abroad "social welfare" approach to education It proposed that the federalgovernment assist individuals-from childhood to old age-rather than insti-

tutions or state and local governments Moreover, rather than attempting tosatisfy different groups of education proponents, the BOB proposed bundlingthe various proposals into a single bill.65

The BOB updated and expanded its recommendations in a Novembermemo stating that Heducation would now be conceived of as something thatgoes beyond the confines of schoo1.nThus, because education takes placethroughout life, cCthe conceptual matrix for the education package would be aidand programs for preschool, elementary school, high school, college, graduate,postgraduate, work, work sabbatical, and old age.n66 The only extant detailsabout the preschool proposal are found in an attached summary describing var-ious components of the proposed initiative Under the category HEducationalPrograms and Services,n the memo recommended an annual$25million ap-propriation for Hspecial services for pre-school, in-school, and out-of-schoolhandicapped.nSupport for preschool education also might have been implicitlyassumed under the provisions for ccassistance for projects to deal with problems

of slum or other depressed areas and special groups,n but the document made

no mention of specific types of education programs envisioned.67

As the BOB issued its memo, the distinguished Bipartisan Citizen's mittee for Federal Aid for Public Elementary and Secondary Education-notsurprisingly-recommended more federal assistance But the panel believedthat the federal government should transfer those funds to existing state edu-cation aid systems, allowing them the freedom to allocate the monies as nec-essary They hoped thereby to promote more local and state control of fed-eral monies Key individuals within the BOB and the White House opposedthis idea, however, and pressed for more federal influence over how the pro-posed funds would be spent 68

Com-As Sorensen drafted the 1963 omnibus education bill, he incorporatedmany recommendations from the BOB memo of November8,1962.Yet heretained the proposal by the Citizen's Committee for Federal Aid that oncestates received federal money, they would be free to allocate it among variouseducation initiatives The BOB opposed this provision, advocating insteadproject grants with specific goals that would give the federal governmentmore control over education reforms 69

The BOB memorandums concerning the 1963 omnibus bill targetedpreschool as the starting point for schooling-without specifying the rolethat the federal government might play in this area Yet this mention served

to introduce the need for preschool education, albeit as one of many phases

in the life course 70 The Sorensen draft also emphasized the interrelatedness

of a wide variety of projects The overall package, however, focused on eral funding for construction of facilities for higher education 71

In the1962midterm elections, Democrats lost two seats in the House butgained four in the Senate 72 As a result, the balance in Congress remainedmuch the same, though Kennedy had to defeat an effort to strengthen con-servatives' hold on the House Rules Committee 73 As the administrationfaced the Eighty-Eighth Congress in1963,tax cuts were the top priority Butfederal aid to education continued to be an important issue.74

The president signaled his continued commitment to education in his uary14, 1963,State of the Union Address He departed from the BOB's em-phasis on education from Hpre-school to old age," instead speaking more nar-rowly of the period Hfrom grade school through graduate school."75 Threedays later the White House released Kennedy's budget message, which usedthe BOB approach of addressing specific problems rather than simply provid-ing general aid to institutions and states Kennedy called for Ha program care-fully designed to provide a major impetus to the solution of a selected num-ber of critical education problems."76 Despite the expanded scope of many ofthe proposed initiatives, the level of funding requested was slightly lowerthan existing levels 77

Jan-The administration unveiled its educations plans in more detail in the cation message that Kennedy delivered to Congress on January29, 1963.Asone of three fundamental guidelines for the legislation, he mentioned the im-portant role of preschool education in the learning process in offering Han ap-praisal of the entire range of education problems, viewing educational op-portunity as a continuous life-long process, starting with pre-school trainingand extending through elementary and secondary schools, college, graduateeducation, vocational education, job training and retraining, adult education,and such general community educational resources as the public library."78

edu-In his discussion of the reforms necessary to improve elementary and ondary education, Kennedy reiterated more traditional messages such as theneed for higher teacher salaries, more classroom construction, extension ofthe National Defense Education Act, and reauthorization of impact aid Yet

sec-he also highlighted tsec-he need to more effectively sec-help disadvantaged students

by Hinitiating pilot, experimental, or demonstration projects to meet specialeducation problems, particularly in slums and depressed rural and urbanareas."79

Most media reaction to the proposed legislation was as expected ANew York Times editorial, for example, praised the initiative: HEducationally, thenew approach chosen by the President for this bill as a whole has much to besaid for it It puts a premium on quality improvement, thus trying to preventthe Federal funds from being used ineffectively by being spread too thin."80Congress greeted the administration's1963omnibus education bill (H.R

3000,S.580)with considerable skepticism, preferring to deal with legislation

in a more traditional, piecemeal manner Representative Edith Green (D-OR)warned that she did not uthink [that] the Administration has any chance ofgetting an omnibus bill through this year."81 The Kennedy bill includedabout twenty-five education projects that carried an estimated price tag of$5

billion The House and the Senate held hearings on the bill, and many nesses expressed concern about the attempt to consolidate all programs into

wit-a single pwit-ackwit-age.82

On May22, 1963, Powell reported that the administration was willing toabandon its omnibus approach Thus his House Committee on Educationand Labor separated the legislation into four separate bills:(I) a college aidbill,(2)an elementary and secondary assistance program,(3)reauthorization

of impact aid, and(4)a collection of other administration requests includingthe NDEA, adult education, and teacher quality improvement Powell indi-cated that he had little hope that the elementary and secondary legislationwould be enacted in that session of the Eighty-Eighth Congress.83

Despite the skepticism, Congress managed to pass five major educationbills in1963:(I)a college construction bill, (2) a vocational education initia-tive,(3)a program for teachers of handicapped students,(4)a one-year exten-sion of the NEDA, and(5)a two-year renewal of impact aid The administra-tion's decision to split its omnibus education bill and start with the leastcontroversial components proved a useful strategy to pass many of its initia-tives 84

The aid to elementary and secondary schools was, however, doomed fromthe outset Almost all stakeholders and observers recognized the difficulty ofresolving the impasse regarding assistance to private schools Wayne Morse,leader of the Senate's Democratic education caucus, saw little hope for en-acting any K-12bill and quietly began to explore other ways of framing theissue in the next session of Congress Neither the House nor the Senate re-ported out any bill in1963.Indeed, not wishing to reopen divisive past battles,both the White House and Congress focused on passing the less controversialeducation bills.85

The Kennedy administration's record with respect to education legislation

is mixed Although the White House managed to expand federal funding inareas such as higher education, impact aid, vocational education, and educa-tional television, it failed to enact any large-scale federal aid program for ele-mentary and secondary schools

The debates and setbacks in that area, however, persuaded NEA and tional Catholic Welfare Conference lobbyists that they needed to cooperateamong themselves if they expected to pass any future legislation (This move

Na-set the stage for the Johnson administration's 1964 and 1965 initiatives.) Thefocus on addressing specific problems and permitting more federal influenceover education paved the way for a series of federal education projects duringthe next five years And early childhood education was discussed, althoughthe results were minimal Moreover, BOB staff, who had developed and rec-ommended many of these educational approaches and programs, werepoised to assist in drafting the ambitious Great Society and War on Povertyprojects.

The Ford Foundation and Early Childhood Education

Much of the federal governmenfs expanded role in education during this erainvolved constructing facilities for higher education, increasing university re-search funding, and more impact aid for communities with large numbers ofmilitary personnel Little was done to provide direct aid for K-12 education,and-though awareness of the issue within the BOB did grow-early child-hood education received scant attention

In the private sector, however, interest in early childhood education grams rose during the late 1950S and early 1960s Exploration of the issue wascentered at several experimental sites, including those in Nashville, NewYork, and Syracuse Researchers developed programs to help disadvantagedyouths increase their chances of success by enrolling them in such programs.The Ford Foundation was one of the most influential organizations in thisemerging movement Although it did not particularly emphasize preschoolprograms among its grantees, its early childhood initiatives formed a signifi-cant part of its Great Cities School Improvement Program in the early 1960s.These initiatives became part of federal policy makers' thinking becausefoundation and government employees interacted significantly in dealingwith juvenile delinquency programs The Ford Foundation was also able tocommunicate to key individuals its vision for a comprehensive approach forhelping inner cities As such, the influence of the foundation's Gray AreasProgram on government policy was large

pro-In the late 1940S and early 1950S the Ford Foundation shifted its focus fromstate-level to national projects It quickly developed strong international pro-grams, too, but in the early 1950S its domestic initiatives were neither particu-larly coherent nor very effective.86 In the mid-1950S, however, Paul N.Ylvisaker became director of the public affairs unit, and he focused his group

on urban redevelopment and metropolitan governance problems He rected special attention to initiatives designed to alleviate human suffering

di-stemming from the deteriorating areas (so-called gray areas) between acity~scentral business district and its affluent and growing suburbs.87

Most of the education projects that the foundation supported during the

1950Sfocused on improving adult education, K-12 teacher training, graduate education, and educational television.88But in January1959the ed-ucation division was approached by the school superintendents of fourteenmajor cities requesting funds to help them reconceptualize and reorganizeoperations in their districts 89 To meet this request, the education divisionpartnered with the public affairs unit and developed the Great Cities SchoolImprovement Program, a ten-city program that supported school systems inproviding aid to their disadvantaged students.9o

under-Henry Saltzman of the public affairs department prepared a paper plaining that the Great Cities program would focus on the ways in whichschools could help disadvantaged students in neighborhoods undergoingurban renewal He mentioned the need for preschool programs and for a cur-ricular emphasis on reading, among other suggestions The scholars PeterMarris and Martin Rein, later commissioned by the Ford Foundation to ex-amine the initial Great Cities projects, concluded that the grantees were nei-ther as coordinated nor as effective as the public affairs division had envi-sioned.91

ex-Ylvisaker viewed educational improvement grants as only a beginning,however aFrom the start,H he wrote, Hthe school grants have been regarded

as a stepping-stone to larger grants that would stimulate broader and morecoherent community approaches to the physical and human problems of thegray areas.H92

While working toward this end, the public affairs unit was influenced byRichardA Cloward and LloydE Ohlin, who were studying juvenile delin-quency at ColumbiaUniversity~sSchool of Social Work They advocated acomprehensive approach to improving urban communities rather than fund-ing for targeted projects.93 Thus, the public affairs unit funded additionalprograms in several Great Cities communities in an effort to foster compre-hensive community planning and programs that would improve job opportu-nities, access to education, affordable housing, and health care.94

This new approach is seen in the discussion in thefoundation~s 1962nual report of plans to help recent migrants to the gray areas: aThe programsare concentrated on adjustment of newcomers-especially members ofracial minorities-to urban life They concern the lack of school programsadapted to the special school needs of children in transitional and slumneighborhoods; critical school dropout rates; housing needs; unemployment;family instability; and above-average rates of crime, juvenile delinquency, and