FEDERAL FUNDING FOR EDUCATION

Federal funding for education was controversial during the 1950s. Social and political events shaped education and how it was financed. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce reported in 1950 that the annual cost of educating a pupil, adjusted for inflation, rose 37 percent over the previous decade (from $92 per pupil per year in 1940 to $232 in 1950 in dollars of the day; by 1960 per pupil expenditure for education rose to $433). The funding from all sources needed for pupil education during the 1950s reached over $15 billion by 1959. However, the percentage of national income spent on education had dropped from 15.31 percent in 1940 to 8.24 percent in 1950 and was predicted to drop more during the 1950s. (In fact, the percentage rose slightly during the decade.) Educators and social observers argued for more federal aid to education as a means of ensuring the ability of the nation to compete in the world economy and to keep pace in the age of technology.

Little attention was paid at the time, however, to the strings attached to federal funds. Few realized the potential for federal intrusion into education until 1954, when the federal government ordered desegregation. Although the U.S. Supreme Court did not apply the principle at the time, it later argued that even though the federal government provided only about 4.5 percent of the cost of educating a student in public elementary and secondary schools in 1956, the use of federal funds obligated a school or school system to comply with all federal "guidelines" (not statutes). States, which supplied nearly 40 percent of the cost of education, and local governments, which contributed more than the states, felt that their preferences should have precedence over those of the federal government. But their argument was ultimately rejected, and though federal funding increased modestly, most of the cost of education was raised from state and local taxes.