McGuinn, Patrick. No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965-2005. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2006.

== Summary ==
This
book is a political analysis of the evolution of federal elementary and
secondary education policy between 1965 and 2005 and argues that education
policy was shaped by broader ideological changes and also came to play a key
role in electoral politics. He argues that the federal in education was
dominated by a few groups and little public input from 1965 to the 1980s and
questions regarding the federal role in education garnered very little mass
public debate. The struggle to define the federal role in school reform became
a public concern (Nation at Risk) and thus played a central role in the
electoral politics and inter-intra party debates during he 1980s and 1990s over
the appropriate role of national government in promoting opportunity and social
welfare. President Bush (#1) made himself the first “education president” and based
on the findings from the “A Nation at Risk” report, proposed policy that
de-emphasized inputs (funding) and underscored outputs (achievements). While
Bush moved policy in that direction, McGuinn argues that Clinton played a
central role. As a centrist democrat, he rejected conservative efforts to
reject the federal role in education and the liberal emphasis on inputs rather
than outputs. Education, as a result of these policies, became central to
electoral politics. The Improving America’s Schools Act (IASA, 1994) was the
first policy to introduce the idea of accountability. With the reelection of
Clinton, Republicans rescinded their calls to end the Dept. of Education and
accepted a limited federal role in education.  The NCLB was thus a grand compromise between
accountability and a federal role in education. It ended the equity regime that
began in 1965 and brought about what McGuinn sees a revolutionary education
policy approach: accountability.
Also see: James D. Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education; Diane Ravitch, The Death and Life;  David Tyack/Larry Cuban, Tinkering Toward Utopia; William Reese, America's Public Schools;