Since the 1960s, schools have relied on federal and state programs to provide the extra resources and services needed to help certain categories of disadvantaged students catch up with their classmates. While many credit these categorical programs with expanding educational opportunities, increasing numbers question the effectiveness of this ad…

Research based on followup interviews with some "key actors" at the federal level about the most significant recent events in education identified five topics: the cutbacks in federal education spending, the deregulation and decentralization embodied in provisions of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act (ECIA), proposed and de…

The articles of this special issue commemorate 25 years of the Chapter 1 compensatory education program. With the enactment of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 the Federal government became widely and directly involved in precollegiate education. By 1991, under the Hawkins Stafford Act of 1988, the initiative, renamed…