History and operations of The Department of Education
The Department of Education was originally created in the mid-1800s to help with education reform and help with the school system at the time. The Cold War prompted the United States to reform education due to the race between the United States and the Soviet Union. “The Cold War stimulated the first example of comprehensive Federal education legislation, when in 1958 Congress passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik. To help ensure that highly trained individuals would be available to help America compete with the Soviet Union in scientific and technical fields, the NDEA included support for loans to college students, the improvement
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President Jimmy Carter felt that the education department at the time needed to be reformed from the previous conditions due to the demographic changes in the United States, he wanted to find a way to separate the original Department of Health, Education and Welfare, this created the current department that is currently used today. The Department of Education’s main role is to make sure that all of the students who are publicly educated are treated equally, to provide money to government funded institutions, collect data on schools and accreditation. One of the biggest functions are providing funding for loans, and grants to help those who …show more content…
This Department is the smallest but yields more work, yet the employees lack the help to move forward with many of its policies. No Child Left Behind has many problems, one being the fact that there are mandated standardized tests but some teachers would teach the information regarding the test the whole year instead of having a well-rounded curriculum, they are only teaching their students how to take tests not why the information should be important. Another major problem with this act is the fact that it gives the Federal Government control over education instead of the state/local government like it was intended. This act is/ was not effective because its underfunded and not effective, many students under this act were failed because they were pushed through when they could not perform the basic requirements that promoted them to the next grade. The fact that teachers were the only ones who were held accountable for the students does not make any sense for the simple fact that said student could have a learning disability, their parents are enabling them, or their home life is affecting their ability to focus in school. This act failed to address all possible outcomes, and just focused on the faults of the teachers. “Real equal opportunity, of course,