ABSTRACT
All major educational policies constitute a clear break with the policy trend toward equal educational opportunity. The proposal to transform the Department of Education into an educational foundation also seems part of the same general effort to delimit the scope of federal policy and public action. Scholars and practitioners have made contradictory statements and comments about educational policy. Three themes seem to be key: contraction of the public sphere and of the definition of what constitutes the legitimate public interest, social triage and individualism and privatization of the public interest. Administration analysts and conservative thinkers believe it is the more motivated children and parents who are likely to use tax credits to leave ghetto schools. Emphasis on educational equity and on reforms that would improve education for the disadvantaged emerged during the 1960s. During the 1960s, the struggle for the advancement of blacks coincided with American economic interests.
