Chapter 9: Family Involvement in Federal Education Programs: The Bush Years

Since the 1960s the federal government has invested in public education along with the much larger contributions of states and localities. To help equalize schooling opportunities for underachieving groups, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 authorized, for the first time, federal monies to fund public education. This and later federal programs brought about major changes within public education. One of these changes is federal attention to parent involvement in educational programs.

This chapter will review programs funded by the U.S. Department of Education during the presidency of George W. Bush that include provisions for parent involvement in K–12 schooling. It is a sequel to earlier papers on the same topic by the author (Moles, 2001; Moles, 2005) written before and at the outset of the Bush educational initiatives. Some key points from these previous works will be restated here by way of introduction to more recent developments. For more detailed information about past federal initiatives, please consult the earlier papers.