Section file 5 of 6 · Acts4 pages
Six federal acts and what each actually changed
ESEA to ESSA, and the courts alongside them.

Acts
The federal government entered the classroom through poverty
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 attached federal money to disadvantage, which is how Washington acquired a role at all.
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Acts
A 1983 pamphlet set the terms for thirty years
A Nation at Risk framed schooling as an economic emergency, and the vocabulary of every reform since comes from it.
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Acts
Accountability was federalised and then handed back
No Child Left Behind (2001) set federal consequences for test results; ESSA (2015) returned most of that discretion to the states.
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Acts
Desegregation was ordered and then had to be implemented
Brown v. Board (1954) settled the law and started the far longer administrative argument about districts and boundaries.
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- The federal government entered the classroom through povertyThe Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 attached federal money to disadvantage, which is how Washington acquired a role at all.
- A 1983 pamphlet set the terms for thirty yearsA Nation at Risk framed schooling as an economic emergency, and the vocabulary of every reform since comes from it.
- Accountability was federalised and then handed backNo Child Left Behind (2001) set federal consequences for test results; ESSA (2015) returned most of that discretion to the states.
- Desegregation was ordered and then had to be implementedBrown v. Board (1954) settled the law and started the far longer administrative argument about districts and boundaries.