Elementary and Secondary Education Act
President Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act into law two days later on April 9, 1965.New Titles Created by Early Amendments to 1965 LawTitle I ("Title One"), a provision of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act passed in 1965, is a program created by the U.S. Department of Education to distribute funding to schools and school districts with a high percentage of students from low-income families. Funding is distributed first to state educational agencies (SEAs) which then allocate funds to local educational agencies (LEA's) which in turn dispense funds to public schools in need. Title I also helps children from families that have migrated to the United States and youth from intervention programs who are neglected or at risk of abuse. The act appropriates money for educational purposes for the next five fiscal years until it is reauthorized. In addition, Title I appropriates money to the education system for prevention of dropouts and the improvement of schools; these appropriations are carried out for five fiscal years until reauthorization.
Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson
Johnson, whose own ticket out of poverty was a public education in Texas, fervently believed that education was a cure for ignorance and poverty. In the 1960s, education funding was especially tight due to the demographic challenges posed by the large Baby Boomer generation, but Congress had repeatedly rejected increased federal financing for public schools. Johnson made education the top priority of the Great Society agenda, and placed an emphasis on helping poor children. After the 1964 landslide brought in many new liberal congressmen, LBJ launched a legislative effort which took the name of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965. The bill sought to double federal spending on education from $4 billion to $8 billion. The bill passed the House by a vote of 263–153 on March 26, 1965, and then that same bill passed the Senate, 73-8, without going through the usual conference committee. In practice ESEA meant helping all public school districts, with more money going to districts that had large proportions of students from poor families. The bill prevented school districts that practiced segregation from receiving federal funding, and offered funding to parochial schools indirectly. The federal share of education spending rose from 3 percent in 1958 to 10 percent in 1965, and continued to grow after 1965. The act also contributed to a major increase in the pace of desegregation, as the share of Southern African-American students attending integrated schools rose from 2 percent in 1964 to 32 percent in 1968.