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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2017
Earliest efforts to provide some form of federal aid to education can be traced to the days of the Northwest Ordinance of 1785. The century following provided many precedents in legislation and judicial interpretation and witnessed the long heritage of interest by various groups in such proposals. Gordon Lee has carefully examined this background and has analyzed the first major efforts to obtain federal aid for the schools during the years 1870–1890. During the twentieth century there has been a continuous and increasing interest in proposals for federal aid to elementary and secondary schools. More than a dozen bills have received serious consideration by Congress between 1900 and 1945 and since then federal aid bills have been introduced regularly in every session. Congress, however, has failed to pass any of them.
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