Since the Great Society era of the 1960s, public education as a key lever for advancing social equity and economic opportunity has received bipartisan support in the United States. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Higher Education Act, and other major education legislation have received strong presidential and congressional support. In his critical analysis of the political history of national education policy, historian and union activist Jon Shelton argues that the bipartisan agreement on education to employment has displaced a much-needed social democratic platform that offers job guarantee to the schooled population. As Shelton argues, the “education myth…asserted that building human capital through education represented the best, and increasingly, the only way for Americans to access economic opportunity…this myth choked off social democratic alternatives…that would guarantee economic security and social dignity” for many without college degrees (3).

Shelton's historical analysis shows that education was framed broadly and encompassed social, economic, and civic aims through the 1960s. The 1970s marked the rise of the professional class and education policy began to shift away from Daniel Bell's notion of a “just meritocracy.” Although Ronald Reagan was strongly opposed to social democracy