Donna Hearne on the roots of federally-funded education

These revolutionary educational movers, movements, and ideas coalesced in 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson created and passed, as a part of the "war on poverty," the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).  For the first time, education became an official federal program, even though it was not one of the legal areas for federal involvement specified in the Constitution.  This law cleverly authorized federally-funded education programs, administered by the states, effectively shifting decision-making from the local to the federal.  In 2002, Congress amended ESEA and reauthorized it as the No Child Left Behind Act.  Social justice planners were delighted and went to work.

~ Donna H. Hearne, The Long War & Common Core, p. 4