A Commitment to Equity

What Matters About the Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965?

By Ellen Condliffe Lagemann

This week marks the 40th anniversary of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law in a one-room Texas schoolhouse on April 11, 1965. No less than the anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education last year, this milestone invites reflection on what has changed and what has remained the same 40 years after passage of this landmark legislation.

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act broke a logjam. To be sure, the federal government had played an important role in shaping education policy, at least since passage of the Morrill Act at the time of the Civil War. Through land grants, that act had created the state university system that helped make higher education in the United States the marvel of the world.

Beyond that, the National Defense Education Act of 1958 had been “an important harbinger” of the ESEA, because it overcame some of the thorny issues that had previously blocked “directive and categorical” federal...