The Era of Education: The Presidents And the Schools, 1965-2001

This is a study of educational policy from Lyndon Johnson through Bill Clinton, focusing on three specific issues--public school aid, non-public (especially Catholic) school aid, and school desegregation--that speak to the proper role of the federal government in education as well as to how education issues embody larger questions of opportunity, exclusion, and equality in American society. Lawrence J. McAndrews traces the evolution of policy as each president developed (or avoided developing) a stance toward these issues and discusses the repercussions and implications of policy decisions for the educational community over nearly four decades. By drawing extensively on presidential and other archives, as well as interviews with key players, McAndrews is able to reconstruct the internal debates, negotiations, decisions, and non-decisions over policies, as well as the personal predispositions, political circumstances, and administrative dynamics that elevated a given issue to priority status under certain presidents while leaving it idle under others. The result is a well-organized survey of policy enlivened by the personalities of those involved, from the presidents on down to interest group and state representatives across the country.

Lawrence J. McAndrews is a professor of history at St. Norbert College in Wisconsin.