Lyndon B Johnson Legacy Of The Great Society

The Great Society and its Programs

Kids complain about school. It’s a fact of life, a fact of adolescence, it’s accepted. Others join in, whining about class difficulty (they’re always too hard even when they’re not), that standardized tests are pointless, how there’s always too much homework and no time to do it in. Teenagers always find something. Now adolescents aren’t the only ones to complain, adults do also. One of the things that is criticized often is insurance and its effectiveness: everything is too expensive, there’s never as much coverage as wanted, but that once they’re older things will be better (or worse, it doesn’t matter). These petty issues seem like they’re only relevant today, however, a milder form of these issues was
One of LBJ’s main goals was social reform, and this was accomplished through an agenda called the Great Society. This was intended to be Johnson’s legacy of Domestic Reform. The Great Society was first the attempt to finish the work that John F Kennedy had started with his New Frontier. The first act that Johnson signed into law was the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that Kennedy had been fighting for before his death. However, Johnson wanted to prove that he wasn’t just going to be a stand-in for Kennedy until the next election, he wanted to prove his viability for the presidency (ushistory.org, “Lyndon Johnson’s ‘Great Society’ 1). The Great Society would do this for him, Johnson would be making changes and continuing progressive work. As a whole, the Great Society resembled former president Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal (regentsprep.org, “U.S. History & Government: 1960’s & The Great Society” question 2). The intent behind this agenda was a War on Poverty. Johnson’s central goal was the desire to provide assistance to the poorest people living under the poverty line in America. The Great Society created many programs to accomplish this
Up until today, the ESEA was reauthorized seven times, but every time the original goal remained constant. Helping students in need was always the main objective. One of the major changes over the years was a transition in how the funds were distributed. From giving funds to the school itself, they were assigned to the students. Who received aid was based on economic status and economic achievement. Some specific acts changed particular aspects of the law. In 1981, the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act decreased federal regulations and gave control over to state governments instead of the federal government. Because of this act, an objective changed to advancing student’s personal achievement. Another bill called the Improving America’s Schools Act lowered the threshold for qualifying for aid from 75% to 50% of the population in poverty (wikipedia.org, “Elementary and Secondary Education Act”). It gave longer times to use federal funding and gave more control to local organizations, allowing federal requirements to be bypassed. In 2002, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act took on a new name, No Child Left Behind. No Child Left Behind was a standards based system that increased accountability between teachers and students. Each state would create its own education