il. Some states like New Jersey spend a lot per pupil, while other states such as California spend very little.
As has been seen in the previous section, the federal government in the U.S. does not control public education (if it did control public education, expenses per pupil could be more uniform), but it has wide influence. As an article in the Encyclopedia America points out, "Because the 10th Amendment reserves to the states or to the people powers not expressly delegated to the United States by the Constitution, education has generally been conceived to be the prerogative of the states, and most public education in the United States is carried on by local school boards acting under state laws" (Grolier Electronic Publishing, 1995, "Educational Administration").
As the above article continues to elaborate, the "general welfare" clause in the Constitution (as well as other clauses) have warranted increasing federal involvement in education. Two national Acts, the National Defense Act of 1958 and The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 are two instances of national intervention into the states' regulation of education. The federal government began to allocate resources (money) to local districts, but local districts found that there was a price to be paid in terms of further bureaucracy at the federal level (forms of compliance to be filled out, and guidelines and mandates to be fulfilled).
As has been said, small local schools were gradually merged into large regional institutions. In other words, our schools reflect the high level of bureaucratic organization found throughout American society. The agrarian "little red schoolhouse" society has been replaced by an industrial-based society with all of its bureaucratic machinations. While this type of organization may make sense in terms of cost and efficiency, it may well have a negative effect on administrators, teachers, and students.
Although the ...