Abolishing the Department of Education: A View from 2005
Andrew Mollison wrote this 6,000+ word article in Phi Delta Kappan, wherein he interviewed folks near the federal battle to abolish the Department of Education.
One juicy tidbit about the House of Representatives’ vote to create the department: conservative firebrands Newt Gingrich (GA) and Trent Lott (MS) voted for the legislation.
You can get an original copy here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/003172170508600910.
Dick M. Carpenter, Ronald Reagan and the Redefintion of the “Education President”
This article appeared in the Texas Education Review’s Winter 2003-2004 edition as an online exclusive.
The article is good and works cited at the end is extensive.
You might be able to get a copy of the original via the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20040124134733/http://educationreview.homestead.com/.
By the way, the Texas Education Review once was a hotbed of conservative education reform scholarship. Click the above link and check out the masthead and contributors!
Big Debates About Federal Education Policy in Journals, 1982-2005
Big debates about federal education policy do not happen only on Capitol Hill. Academics and wonks have had some major conversations over the decades. Starting in the early 1980s, debates over disappointing educational achievement and what if anything the federal government could do (beyond providing still more resources) erupted. Below are four journals that had symposia on this meaty question. Authors included the heavies of the day, like Carl Kaestle, Diane Ravitch, Michael Kirst, and more. By no means is this list comprehensive—these just happen to be volumes that I came across during my research and that struck me as particularly smart and influential.
Harvard Educational Review, Rehinking the Federal Role in Education, November 1982
Teachers College Record, Education Policy in the Clinton Administration (symposium), Spring 1995
A memo questioning the wisdom of creating a U.S. Department of Education
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is nonpartisan thinktank with the Library of Congress. It supports our national legislature in many important ways. At bottom, CRS provides a representative assembly comprised of diverse amateurs with something rare: trustworthy information and expertise.
One important but little known service CRS provides is critical feedback to legislators who request it. This can be delivered via a phonecall, in-person meeting, or written format. During my time at CRS, I frequently was asked to critique ideas for legislation and draft proposals. One particularly smart legislator sent me a white paper and asked me to “tear it apart.” Which I did in a lengthy memo that I wrote.
Continue reading “A memo questioning the wisdom of creating a U.S. Department of Education”
Federal Education Policy History 