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.
Great Society
The most important educational component of the Great Society was the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, designed by Commissioner of Education Francis Keppel. It was signed into law on April 11, 1965, less than three months after it was introduced. It ended a long-standing political taboo by providing significant federal aid to public education, initially allocating more than $1 billion to help schools purchase materials and start special education programs to schools with a high concentration of low-income children. During its first year of operation, the Act authorized a $1.1 billion program of grants to states, for allocations to school districts with large numbers of children of low income families, funds to use community facilities for education within the entire community, funds to improve educational research and to strengthen state departments of education, and grants for purchase of books and library materials. The Act also established Head Start, which had originally been started by the Office of Economic Opportunity as an eight-week summer program, as a permanent program.