After World War II, overcrowded classrooms had become an acute crisis as the post-war "baby boom" had created a population bulge of elementary school age children. However attempts to provide general aid failed, due to controversial religious issues surrounding aid to both public and parochial schools. Both the Eisenhower administration and congress took the strategy of focusing on school construction, however some Educational interest groups continued to push for general aid. Then in 1956, the House introduced a bill based upon emergency measures to provide federal school construction assistance. The religious issues had been resolved, but this bill was killed when an anti-segregation rider was attached to it. A second bill was introduced in 1957, this time without the complication of an anti-segregation amendment. This bill too failed, as House democrats and republicans were unable to reach a compromise. Finally, congress passed a bill to authorize a $1.5 billion program of grants to the states for school construction on a dollar-matching basis. President Eisenhower signed this bill in 1959. But just as in 1956, Educational interest groups continued to push for general aid. A fight over federal aid to education was brewing, and it began to boil over in 1960. In 1960, an election year the House passed a federal aid bill for the first time in almost 90 years, but Eisenhower fought back by taking a very conservative stance in its fiscal year 1960 budget. In his 1960, state of the union address, President Eisenhower declared his intentions. He would not budge on the issue. Eisenhower would not substitute federal dollars for state and local funds.
"We cannot be complacent about educating our youth.
But the route to better trained minds is not through the swift administration of a Federal hypodermic or sustained financial transfusion. The educational process, essentially a local and personal responsibility, cannot be made to leap ahead by crash, centralized governmental action.
The Administration has proposed a carefully reasoned program for helping eliminate current deficiencies. It is designed to stimulate classroom construction, not by substitution of Federal dollars for state and local funds, but by incentives to extend and encourage state and local efforts. This approach rejects the notion of Federal domination or control. It is workable, and should appeal to every American interested in advancement of our educational system in the traditional American way. I urge the Congress to take action upon it."
Politically, it was Vice President Richard Nixon who had to pay the price. As part of the federal aid to education, an increase in teacher salary was attached. When the vote reached the senate floor, it ended in a tie and as Vice-President, Nixon was forced to break the tie and thus vote against a teachers' salary increase during an election year. Eventually, a scaled-back version of the salary and construction aid bill was passed, but it became an important issue in the 1960 presidential campaign. In a televised presidential debate, Nixon defended his actions with these words: “When the federal government gets the power to pay teachers, inevitably. it will require the power to set standards and to tell teachers what to teach.“
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=12061
https://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal57-1345328
http://www.library.unt.edu/gpo/acir/Reports/policy/a-81-Vol-V.pdf (pages 22-26)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/queenslandstatearchives/27236109430
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