Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974
Congress passed the EEOA as a house bill amending the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. The only legislative history available for reference is from a similar bill passed in 1972. The House Committee on Education and Labor noted that the bill was significant in that it contained the first "illustrative definition of a denial of equal educational opportunity", and that this lent clarity to schools, governmental authorities, and students as to what, precisely, their rights were.
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.