The US Department of Education (ED) was created in late 1979 during the Carter administration. He had run for president in 1976, advocating a stand-alone education department after the National Education Association (NEA) had offered to endorse a candidate who would support a new department. NEA by that time had transformed from a professional association to a labor union, and was flexing its political muscles.

Until 1979, federal education functions were either independent agencies or housed in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), which itself had been created in the early years of Dwight Eisenhower’s first presidential term. These various educational functions included the Office of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, and several other entities. But the federal government’s involvement in education was at that time minor and benign compared to its expansion in more recent years.