Health, Education and Welfare Department
The Health, Education and Welfare Department was a cabinet-level department of the Federal government until 1979, when a new cabinet position and department was created for the Department of Education. At that time, the HEW was renamed the Department of Health and Human Services.
Such a department was proposed as early as 1923, but wasn't implemented until 1953.
Speech Relevance[edit]
Reagan mentions the Health, Education and Welfare Department in Encroaching Control:
We must, in order to meet Russia on equal terms, adopt a same kind of nationalized program they have. The Health, Education and Welfare Department has quadrupled its staff. It today is working to create a system of national curriculum and a set of national policies for education because they look forward to the day when we will have a federal school system. In short, the proponents of this measure believe that the only way we can properly educate our young, is to take the control of teachers and subjects and curriculum out of the hands of the parents and put it in the hands of a bureau in Washington, D.C.
Currently, the HEW's successor, the Department of Education, does not and has not directly set curriculum as Reagan feared. Its purpose is to administrate the allocation of Federal funds to schools, collect data and enforce certain Federal laws that pertain to education. However, in a preceding sentence in Encroaching Control, he says:
The director of public education of the state of Washington spoke out in protest publicly against the problem of his state. For two years, in trying to fit itself to the rigid requirements of the director, the national director of education under the present act and he said this is federal control by indirection.
So, in order to qualify for Federal funds (which is within the purview of the Department of Education) a school district might need to meet certain demands, which may or may not relate to school curriculum.
