Education - Obama Presidency Oral History

As the Department of Education implemented RTT, the administration began extended negotiations over the renewal of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, the primary source of federal education funding. The most recent reauthorization was the George W. Bush-era No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which increased the role of the federal government in American education, and required states to develop common educational standards and administer standardized tests to all students. Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan criticized aspects of No Child Left Behind, and in the reauthorization process the administration sought to move toward a system that evaluated teachers and schools based on student improvement, rather than performance against standard benchmarks, and took a rehabilitative, instead of punitive, approach to struggling schools. These principles were enshrined in the Every Student Succeeds Act, which Obama signed in late 2015. Among other measures, the legislation increased the autonomy of states and school districts to set standards, design plans for their achievement, and develop curricula. Civil rights groups expressed wariness about the bill’s delegation of power to local jurisdictions, but it passed with significant bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress, and with the support of major teachers' unions.

While RTT and the Every Student Succeeds Act focused on K-12 education, the administration pursued several actions to increase the accessibility and affordability of postsecondary education. Early in his presidency, Obama set a goal that by 2020 the United States would again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. Toward that end, First Lady Michelle Obama launched the Reach Higher initiative from the White House’s East Wing to encourage postsecondary enrollment, increase awareness about existing federal college access tools, and expand access to college counseling services. The administration also launched the “College Scorecard” website to allow students and parents to evaluate the relative merits of different institutions according to key indicators like costs and postgraduate wages. To improve the affordability of higher education, the administration introduced a new higher education tax credit and ended public-private partnership financing of student loans, replacing the Federal Family Education Loan program with direct Department of Education loans and using generated savings to expand the Pell Grant program to support low-income students. The administration also supported community college, vocational, and apprenticeship programs, and launched grants to support innovative partnerships between community colleges and local businesses. In project interviews, narrators reflect on the accessibility of higher education in the United States during the Obama years, and recount their involvement in postsecondary reform efforts.

The administration also worked to protect and advance civil rights at schools and on college campuses. Sexual and gender-based violence and discrimination were the focus this effort. The Department of Education updated standards for evaluating sexual assault and harassment complaints under Title IX, while the White House launched a Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault, and supported public service campaigns to encourage a culture of zero-tolerance for sexual assault. The Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights also issued a "Dear colleague" letter informing educational institutions that students should be allowed to use bathrooms that match their gender identity, or risk violating Title IX and losing federal funding. In their oral histories, White House advisors and agency officials outline these actions and initiatives, and describe the public engagement processes that informed them.

The Obama Presidency Oral History project’s education coverage overlaps and intersects with multiple other topic areas in the collection, including Science, Financial Crisis and the Economy, Arts and Humanities, and the East Wing.