External Influences on Education Timeline

First Event: 1965. 

External Influence: Political Event: The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). 

Summary of the Event: 

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was enacted into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 (Gamson et al., 2015). The law represented a landmark commitment of the U.S. federal government on equal and quality educational opportunities for all Americans irrespective of their economic background or means (Reed, 2016) . The legislation's primary objective was to improve students' educational attainment from low-income communities by providing federal funds to school districts serving underprivileged students. The act mandated that federal funds must be authorized for incentives to promote educational programs, professional advancement, the promotion of parental participation, and the provision of instructional materials (Gamson et al., 2015). ESEA was the first law in the U.S. that connected aid to a given political issue, which alleviated poverty. 

Impact on Education:

ESEA has had an immense impact on education finance. ESEA increased federal spending on K-12 education, which increased from 4.4 percent in 1963 to 739 percent in 1965 (Kaul & Davis, 2018) . The share of state funding in schools increased by 40 percent in 2000 until the great recession, making funding for schools more equal across state (Kaul & Davis, 2018) s. 

ESEA has had positive educational outcomes, although they have not been revolutionary. Today, the American labor force is more educated than it was in 1965. ESEA resulted in an increase in educational attainment for people born after 1965, as reported by ( Reed 2016) . Gamson et al. (2015) found that higher spending in Title I in school districts between 1965 and 1980 was linked with higher high school graduation rates. Reed (2016) also found that students in districts that experienced an increase in Title I disbursements were less likely to repeat classes and be suspended or expelled from school. 

ESEA has also resulted in improved wage equality in the middle of the 20th century. ESEA has enabled individuals from low-income districts to get well-paying jobs and raise their children under better conditions (Gamson et al., 2015). Since its establishment, the U.S. human capital grew from about eighty million individuals in 1966 to about 158 million in 2013, according to the U.S bureau of labor statistics (Gamson et al., 2015). 

Personal Thoughts on Influence:

ESEA has had numerous effects on the educational outcomes of children from low-income communities and has increased federal spending in enhancing academic quality. However, despite the millions of dollars spent by the federal government on improving educational outcomes, children from low-income districts continue to struggle with inadequate educational opportunities. Schools from impoverished areas remain poorly staffed and underfunded. The quality of their education remains poor, and their teachers are often overburdened by various environmental factors that impact student achievement. I believe that the persistent inequity in educational resources is the greatest obstacle to social equality and educational attainment. Since its enactment 50 years ago, ESEA has not had a significant effect on financial equity because states have been granted constitutional mandate over public education, and the national government does not have the jurisdiction to compel states on how they fund their schools.  

Second Event: 1983

External Influence: Business Advocacy Group: The Washington Roundtable

Summary of the Event:

The Washington Roundtable was established in 1983 by senior executives of major private organizations in Washington State. These business executives work together to implement initiatives that they consider to be positive on public policy issues that they believe are critical to supporting the state's economic vitality and fostering opportunities for all Washingtonians (Blau, 2021) . The Washington Roundtable was instrumental in the enactment of the 2015 Early Start Act that aimed to expand the state's quality and size of early educational programs, ensuring that all children have access to school, families can break from the cycle of poverty, and state communities can attain ROI (return on investment) on the outcomes of high-quality education (Oldham, 2018). 

Impact on Education:

The 2015 Early Start Act improved the education outcomes for children in Washington and enhanced their kindergarten readiness statewide. In 2017, the program resulted in 47.5 percent of the state's children demonstrating readiness for kindergarten (Blau, 2021) . A 2016 Brookings Institution survey found that Washington's Early Start program improved the probability of children graduating from high school and college and displayed more robust behavioral, social, and emotional development into adulthood (Oldham, 2018). The objectives of the Early Start Act initiatives in Washington have been aligned to k-12 grade standards to ensure college and career readiness (Blau, 2021) . 

Personal Thoughts on Influence:

Implementing the Early Start Act made parents realize the importance of learning as a critical strategy and investment to ensure that their children enter school ready to learn. The institutionalization of high-quality k-12 programs increases the chances of children graduating from high school and avoiding adverse behaviors that can lead to imprisonment. A growing body of literature reinforces the association between high-quality early childhood instruction and their future success, which has resulted in policy changes and the expansion of early childhood programs (Oldham, 2018).   

Third Event: 2000

External Influence: Advocacy Group: The Black Alliance for Educational Options

Summary of the Event: 

The Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO) is a non-profit advocacy group established in 2000 to advocate for initiatives that included charter schools, high educational options, tuition credits, private school vouchers, and public-school choice programs that empowered low-income and working-class African-American families (Frankenberg et al., 2017) . Although school and educational choices were available to all Americans, it was not widely accessible to the poor. BAEO believed that middle- and upper-class families had better educational decisions because they could relocate to different neighborhoods with better public and private schools (Malin et al., 2019) . On the other hand, children from deprived families were trapped in failing public schools that lacked proper educational incentives. BAEO worked with legislators at the federal and state level to institute public and privately financed scholarships to home schools, charter schools, and private schools (Frankenberg et al., 2017).

Impact on Education:

As a result, BAEO's initiatives, Congress established the country's first federally-funded voucher plan in the District of Columbia in 2004. The program set aside more than $40 million that allowed at least 1,700 poor District of Columbia public-school students to be granted vouchers valued at $1,700 to attend private schools (Malin et al., 2019) . In 2009, BAEO partnered with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and other state legislators to implement a $10 million private scholarship fund in New Orleans. As a result, the Louisiana Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence program issued out scholarships of up to $7,138 to impoverished families so that they could transfer their children out of failing public schools (Malin et al., 2019) . This initiative helped more than 700 students during the 2008-2009 school year, and the number increased to more than 1,200 students the following year (Frankenberg et al., 2017) . In 2008, Georgia passed its first universal school choice program in which parents from public schools were eligible for $50 million in grants to send their children to private schools (Malin et al., 2019) .

Personal Thoughts on Influence:

BAEO played an integral role in empowering low-income black families in choosing high-quality educational options. BAEO also ensured that the perspectives of African American students and families did not go overlooked by state and federal governments. African-American parents who wanted better education options for their children opted for private and chartered schools. BAEO was responsible for giving power to the voices of the minority by partnering with parents and legislators to help them achieve better educational outcomes. Today, parental school choice in America is widespread, not unless your family is poor. However, when parents from impoverished families have access to more educational opportunities, they guarantee that their children will succeed.  

Fourth Event: 2015

External Influence: Political Event: Every Student Succeeds Act

Summary of the Event: 

Since its legislation in 1965, ESEA has undergone nine reauthorizations, including Improving America's School Act (IASA) of 1994, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which as injected more than $13 billion federal funds towards underprivileged students under Title I, Part A, which strives to align educational opportunities and resources to low-income districts (McGuinn, 2019) . The NCLB was repealed in 2015 by the reauthorization of Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) by president Obama, which resulted in the injection of $1.6 billion in federal funding to increase the capacity of local communities, local educational agencies, schools, and states in providing students with access to an all-inclusive education and to improve school conditions for learning (Kaul & Davis, 2018) . 

Impact on Education:

Today, the United States has grown to be more socio-economically and racially diverse than any other country globally. The enactment of the ESSA by the Obama administration ensured that children, irrespective of race, color, income, and class, have equal educational opportunities (McGuinn, 2019) . The ESSA facilitated the decentralization of education funding to state and school districts to ensure that underserved families have their educational rights guaranteed and protected (Kaul & Davis, 2018) . In Louisiana, educators helped pass legislation that limited assessments on all standard-based tests for students in public schools, not more than 2 percent of the minimum number of instructional minutes annually. (Kaul & Davis, 2018) In Fairbanks, educators and legislators continuously conduct equity evaluations and audits to provide the state with a better picture of what initiatives need to occur to elevate learning environments for all students (McGuinn, 2019) . 

Personal Thoughts on Influence:

Research shows that academic achievement can be affected by numerous factors, including testing, health, housing instability, teacher quality, and food security. The ESSA provisions agree that each child is unique, and the one-size-fits-all approach does not work. Thus, the ESSA provides flexibility for educators to monitor the academic performance of disadvantaged groups in order to reduce achievement gaps in the lowest-performing schools. The ESSA also allows states to identify their lowest-performing schools and schools where minority and low-income students struggle. In so doing, states provide evidence-based interventions tailored to meet the educational needs of every student in order to achieve higher-educational outcomes. 

References

Blau, D. (2021). The Effects of Universal Preschool on Child and Adult Outcomes: A Review of Recent Evidence from Europe with Implications for the United States. Early Childhood Research Quarterly , 55 , 52-63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2020.10.009.

Frankenberg, E., Diem, S., & Cleary, C. (2017). School desegregation afterParents Involved: The complications of pursuing diversity in a high‐stakes accountability era. Journal Of Urban Affairs , 39 (2), 160-184. https://doi.org/10.1111/juaf.12309.

Gamson, D. A., McDermott, K. A., & Reed, D. S. (2015). The Elementary and Secondary Education Act at Fifty: Aspirations, Effects, and Limitations.  RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences ,  1 (3), 1–29.

Kaul, C., & Davis, B. (2018). How the State Education Agencies Addressed Gifted Education in the Title II Sections of Their ESSA State Plans. Gifted Child Today , 41 (3), 159-167. https://doi.org/10.1177/1076217518769700.

Malin, J., Hardy, I., & Lubienski, C. (2019). Educational neoliberalization: the mediatization of ethical assertions in the voucher debate. Discourse: Studies In The Cultural Politics Of Education , 40 (2), 217-233. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2019.1569880

McGuinn, P. (2019). Assessing state ESSA plans: Innovation or retreat?. Phi Delta Kappan , 101 (2), 8-13. https://doi.org/10.1177/0031721719879146.

Oldham, J. (2018). K-12 accreditation’s next move: A storied guarantee looks to accountability 2.0.  Education Next ,  18 (1), 24.

Reed, D. (2016). ESEA at Fifty: Education as State-Building. History Of Education Quarterly , 56 (2), 368-374. https://doi.org/10.1111/hoeq.12188.