Education from the Cold War to No Child Left Behind: How federal policy makers have sought to transfer responsibility for societal issues onto America's schools

In transferring responsibility for societal issues onto schools, the federal government has used a policy of partial intervention to quell the public outcry for curricular and practical reforms the American public believed were needed to address concerns of a particular era. The intervention was partial in that funding for change was shared with states and localities while the federal government assumed the role of overseer. Often the issues which needed to be addressed demanded an accelerated response from federal officials, so these officials used schools to craft an image of "future-impact" to slow the demand for unreasonably quick reform. The National Defense Education Act of 1957, The Title IX Amendments of 1972, and the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 illustrate the shifting of responsibility from the federal government onto schools which was motivated by the government's need to minimize pressing social issues.