Department+of+Education

**Mission Statement** "Congress established the U.S. Department of Education (ED) on May 4, 1980, in the Department of Education Organization Act (Public Law 96-88 of October 1979). Under this law, ED's mission is to: Current Leaders: Arne Duncan-Secretary of Education **
 * 1) ** Strengthen the Federal commitment to assuring access to equal educational opportunity for every individual. **
 * 2) Supplement and complement the efforts of states, the local school systems and other instrumentalities of the states, the private sector, public and private nonprofit educational research institutions, community unity-based organizations, parents, and students to improve no the quality of education.
 * 3) Encourage the increased involvement of the public, parents, and students in Federal education programs.
 * 4) Promote improvements in the quality and usefulness of education through Federally supported research, evaluation, and sharing of information.
 * 5) Improve the coordination of Federal education programs.
 * 6) Improve the management of Federal education activities.
 * 7) Increase the accountability of Federal education programs to the President, the Congress, and the public."
 * 

**History** 

The original Department of Education was created in 1867 to collect information on schools and teaching that would help the States establish effective school systems. Although its position in the Executive Branch has changed over the years, the collecting of information for teachers and administrators to better education. In 1890, the Department of Education, then called the Office of Education, was given the right to give grants to universities. Vocational education became the next major area of Federal aid to schools, focusing on agricultural, industrial, and home economics training for high school students.World War II led to a significant expansion of Federal support for education. The Lanham Act in 1941 and the Impact Aid laws of 1950 eased the burden on communities affected by the presence of military and other Federal installations by making payments to school districts. And in 1944, the "GI Bill" authorized postsecondary education assistance that would ultimately send nearly 8 million World War II veterans to college.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 of science, mathematics, and foreign language instruction in elementary and secondary schools, graduate fellowships, foreign language and area studies, and vocational-technical training.The anti-poverty and civil rights laws of the 1960s and 1970s brought about a dramatic emergence of the Department's equal access mission. The passage of laws such as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 which prohibited discrimination based on race, sex, and disability, respectively made civil rights enforcement a fundamental and long-lasting focus of the Department of Education. In 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act launched a comprehensive set of programs, including the Title I program of Federal aid to disadvantaged children to address the problems of poor urban and rural areas. And in that same year, the Higher Education Act authorized assistance for postsecondary education, including financial aid programs for needy college students. In 1980, Congress established the Department of Education as a Cabinet level agency. Today, ED operates programs that touch on every area and level of education. The Department's elementary and secondary programs annually serve more than 14,000 school districts and some 56 million students attending more than 97,000 public schools and 28,000 private schools. Department programs also provide grant, loan, and work-study assistance to nearly 11 million postsecondary students.

The Federal budget process is initiated in the Executive Branch with budget formulation. In the Department of Education this usually begins in May. Then, no later than the first Monday in February, by law, the President submits his budget to Congress. Congress reviews the President's plan and then adopts a budget resolution, setting forth its own guidelines for spending and revenues that it plans to follow when passing appropriations laws, tax laws and authorizations. It is the appropriations laws and the laws establishing entitlement programs that provide the legal authority for the Federal Government and its agencies to obligate and spend funds. Each appropriations law creates legally binding spending ceilings for the Federal programs it covers, and each law setting up an entitlement program, such as Medicare, establishes and mandates the reasons for and extent of Government spending. Budgeting for a fiscal year can be divided into three phases: (1) budget formulation, (2) budget presentation and the congressional process, and (3) budget execution. For any one fiscal year (beginning October 1 and ending the following September 30), these three phases take place over the course of 2-1/2 years (sometimes more, depending on how long funds are available for obligation at the Federal level). Because of this length of time, Federal agencies must deal concurrently with 2 to 3 fiscal years at any one time.
 * Budget **

http://www.edweek.org/rc/issues/no-child-left-behind/ No Child Left Behind, edweek.org-September 21, 2004
 * No Child Left Behind**

Evaluating 'No Child Left Behind, Linda Darling-Hammond-May 2, 2007
 * http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070521/darling-hammond

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2009/01/25/20090125ednochild0125.html An Uncertain Future for 'No Child Left Behind,' Emily Gersema-January 25, 2009

With former President Bush out of office, No Child Left Behind is being reviewed to see if it should be continued. Although NCLB has improved nationwide records of student achievement, President Obama and Secretary of Eduction, Arne Duncan, are critical on how much it costs to enforce the policy.

Standardized Testing** http://www.fairtest.org/whats-wrong-standardized-tests What's Wrong With Standardized Testing - fairtest.org - December 17, 2007 This article dicusses the wrongs of standardized testing. First, these tests are neither fair nor helpful because they do not require much thought and are culturally biased. Also, they are subjective; they only part of the test that is objective is the grading because it is all done by machine. Because conditions in the enviorment change from day to day, standardized tests are not reliable. These tests make people believe that having a high IQ means they are intelligent. Studies have shown that IQ can change by simply training, nutrition, or having friendly people around. Also, these tests do not help us understand how students learn and are a very poor example of testing because it is all multiple choice. Even though these tests were originally designed for teachers, teachers do not find them helpful at all. Teachers use different techniques to observe strengths and weaknesses of studesnts.

[] Measuring What Matters Least - Jonathan Pollard Many years ago, standardized tests were used to place students in their classes and to see if they needed additional help. Today, these tests are used primarily to rank schools and judge students and teachers. This nation only wants scores of standardized tests to go up but we do not try learning more or try different educational methonds. It seems as if standardized testing is used solely for politics. This article also states that these tests are subjective and culturally biased. Lastly, Pollard states that standardized tests are unrealistic and stress students out.

[] Stop the Standardized Test Tyranny - Greg Fish This article shows both pros and cons to standardized testing. Standardized tests are used to see how well students can do rather than assuming it from their GPA. But these tests are all the same. Students are tested on the same criteria when all humans excel in different things and have different talents. Also, students only learn what they need to for the test and not anything related to their abilities. On top of that schools with the lowest scores get the least funding. This is not fair to under priviledged schools and is hypocritical because of No Child Left Behind. On the other hand, standardized tests are a good way to make sure students get a basic education. In college students can explore different things to find what they want to do in life.

I think President Obama should get rid of standardized testing because they are nothing but subjective. They do not measure intelligence which does not help schools in any aspect.