No abstract

President Reagan's budget for fiscal year 1983 proposes to reduce federal expenditures for education, to disperse the educational programs now housed in the Education Department(ED), and to replace the department with a Foundation for Educational Assistance. The foundation would manage the few remaining programs of student financial assistance, administer the apportionment of block grants to the states, and maintain a program of information, research, and statistics to help improve the nation's schools.

No abstract

The need for experimentation is clear. But in reviewing the history of educational experimentation—from Progressivism through the "Grey Areas" projects of the 1950's and the War on Poverty—the author suggests that fruitful experimentation demands a difficult balance of "real world" involvement and political insulation. The history is particularly relevant to an understanding of the origin, evolution, and prospects of the recent "Experimental Schools" Proposal.