This law (P.L. 79-396; 60 Stat. 230) entered the federal government into schools dietary programs on June 4, 1946.
Category: Laws
Vocational Education Act of 1917, or Smith-Hughes Act of 1917
This is the first law (P.L. 64-347; 39 Stat. 929) that authorized federal government oversight of a portion of high school curricula. It was signed into law on February 23, 1917.
Act to Establish a Federal Department of Education, 1867
Many are under the impression that the Department of Education was first created in 1979. That is not true. The first Department of Education was established on March 2, 1867 (14 Stat. 434).
However, it did not have a secretary at its helm like other departments (e.g., the Department of War.) Instead, it had a commissioner.
Federal Education Laws (Current)
The major corpus of current federal education laws and policies may be found in Title 20 of the U.S. Code.
However, some less-well-known education policies can be found elsewhere in the U.S. Code.
Laws (or statutes) as originally enacted by Congress are published elsewhere on this website. Just look at the entries under the Laws category.
Federal Education Policy History 