PI: Pamela B. Walters Co-PI: Emily A. Bowman Indiana University
This project examines why a nation that embraces education as a core value does not have a more centralized system of public education. To address this issue, this study investigates key points in US history when policies designed to use federal funds in the provision of public education were seriously considered, but largely thwarted. Using a comparative-historical research design and conducting textual analyses of both secondary and primary sources of data (including the Congressional Record, newspaper articles, and archival materials), three specific cases are examined: the Blair bills of the post-Civil War era, the Harrison bills of the New Deal era, and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of the War on Poverty era. The research investigates how extant elite domination, downtrodden mobilization, state-centered, institutional politics, policy legacy, and political culture explanations can or cannot be usefully applied to explain the lack of a strong federal role in US public education. The findings will aid policymakers.
BROADER IMPACTS: Those who are considering contemporary school reforms such as school funding equalization and school vouchers as well as standing legislation such as the No Child Left Behind Act can benefit from knowing how and why previously proposed federal-level redistributive educational reform efforts have failed. Knowledge of the factors that influence the trajectory of reform can better equip policymakers to overcome obstacles to policies that hold out the promise of improving the lives of future generations.
This research provides the first systematic analysis of a paradox in American educational policy: why does a nation that embraces education as a core value allow a fragmented, decentralized, uneven, and inequitable system of public education? By analyzing three key periods in American history when the federal funding/control of US education was openly contested in the policy arena (the Blair bills of the Post-Civil War era, the Harrison bills of the New Deal era, and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of the War on Poverty era), this project provides a comprehensive analysis of the role of interests, institutions, and ideas in the policymaking process. In so doing, this research assesses the extent to which extant elite domination, downtrodden mobilization, state-centered, institutional politics, policy legacy, and political culture explanations can usefully be applied to explain the lack of a strong federal role in US public education. This research also contributes to prior work on the American welfare state by offering an examination which places education at the center of redistributive concerns, thereby highlighting what welfare state scholars stand to gain by explicitly including education in their investigations of redistributive social policies and programs. Regarding the three key factors that scholars generally point to as being most important in the determination of policy outcomes—interests, institutions, and ideas—this research reveals there is no one pattern that explains the outcome of three cases studied here. Although the Blair bill of the 1880s and 1890s was supported by powerful political actors and the public and was, moreover, rhetorically framed in such a way that it resonated with cultural values, rules pertaining to the legislative process resulted in an institutional bias against the bill that ultimately led to its failure. During the 1930s and 1940s, the Harrison bills did not receive support from those in power and President Roosevelt’s staunch opposition to such bills was enough to thwart their passage. During the 1960s, however, President Johnson’s firm support of the elementary and secondary education bill combined with culturally resonant linguistic frames of poverty and civil rights led to triumph for a federal aid to education bill—the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). However, even this success was tempered by the fact that in order to get the bill passed, the Johnson administration had, based on failures in previous eras, limited the policy’s scope. Thus, this research suggests that interests, institutions, and ideas can become combined in interesting ways to explain why some educational policies fail and others succeed. This research will be of general interest to scholars of both education and politics as it notes that education is a central policy domain for understanding redistributive efforts. This project will also interest policymakers considering redistributive reforms. More specifically, those debating and discussing educational policies (such as school vouchers and No Child Left Behind) can benefit from knowing how and why previously proposed federal-level redistributive educational reform efforts have failed. Knowledge of the factors that have influenced the trajectory of previous reform efforts can better equip policymakers to overcome obstacles to policies that hold out the promise of improving the lives of future generations.
