ABSTRACT
The year was 1950, an important starting point in educational policy in the United States, thus providing an excellent turning point for an analysis of the dynamics between politics and public policy in education. In some ways, the year was a mid-20th century nadir for fair and just public education politics and policy in the United States. Schools were local, segregated in multiple ways, and inequitably funded. De jure racial segregation was in full sway in the schools, while de facto discrimination by race along with ethnicity, gender, and linguistic and academic capacity operated nearly everywhere. School funding policies that were largely dependent on local property taxes, resulting in an imbalance in school district wealth, were accepted as the status quo.
