page_title: Jimmy Carter
section_title: Education
hierarchical_section_title: Jimmy Carter / Presidency, 1977–81 / Domestic policies / Education
caption_attribution_description: Photo courtesy of Jimmy Carter Library
context_page_description: James Earl Carter Jr. is an American politician and philanthropist. He was the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he was a Georgia State Senator from 1963 to 1967 and the 76th Governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975.
  Born and raised in Plains, Georgia, Carter graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1946 with a Bachelor of Science degree and joined the United States Navy. In 1953, Carter left his naval career and returned home to Georgia to take charge of the family's peanut-growing business. Carter was politically motivated to protest against racial segregation and support the growing civil rights movement. He became an activist within the Democratic Party. From 1963 to 1967, Carter was in the Georgia State Senate, and in 1970, he was elected as Governor of Georgia, beating former Governor Carl Sanders in the Democratic primary. Carter remained as governor until 1975.
  At first, he was seen as a dark-horse candidate since not many people knew him outside of Georgia at the start of the presidential campaign, Carter won the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination.
context_section_description: Early into his term, Carter worked with Congress to create an education department. In a February 28, 1978 address at the White House, Carter argued, "Education is far too important a matter to be scattered piecemeal among various Government departments and agencies, which are often busy with sometimes dominant concerns". On February 8, 1979, the Carter administration released an outline of its plan to create an education department. On October 17, 1979, Carter formally signed a law that created the United States Department of Education.
  Carter expanded the Head Start program with the addition of 43,000 children and families. In a November 1, 1980 speech, Carter said his administration had extended Head Start to migrant children and was "working hard right now with Senator Lloyd Bentsen and with Representative Kika de la Garza to make as much as $45 million available in Federal money in the border districts to help with the increase in school construction for the number of Mexican school children who reside here legally".
caption: Carter announcing his plans to create the Department of Education, September 1978
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