A Monument to LBJ
By Goldwater Institute: Dan Lips (12/11/06)
Congress should rename Department of Education building for President Johnson.
When Democrats take over Congress in January, education ideas dismissed by ousted Republican leaders may now receive a legislative hearing. One of those ideas should get conservative support: naming the Department of Education after Lyndon Baines Johnson. For better or worse, the department embodies his legacy.
In 1965, President Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) into law, the bill that would become the foundation of federal education policy, predicting it would usher in "a new day of greatness in American Society."
But has it? Despite billions of dollars spent on federal programs, millions of American schoolchildren have passed through public schools without receiving a quality education. A majority of these children are from disadvantaged families that federal education laws were specifically intended to help.
In 2002, President Bush enacted No Child Left Behind (NCLB), a renamed version of Johnson's original ESEA law. NCLB follows the pattern of the Great Society by seeking to improve schools by expanding the federal government's involvement.
Today a symbol of the Bush Administration's imprint on education stands outside the Department of Education. To enter the building, visitors must walk through a fake red schoolhouse emblazoned with the slogan "No Child Left Behind."
Soon enough that schoolhouse façade will be taken down. All that will remain is the massive Department of Education building--a lasting monument to LBJ’s failed strategy for improving American education.
Dan Lips is an Education Analyst at the Heritage Foundation and a senior fellow with the Goldwater Institute.
http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/AboutUs/ArticleView.aspx?id=1243
(Printer friendly version) Email: Goldwater Institute:
