184 Federal Control of Public Schools and the Decline of Community Carl L. Bankston III CARL L. BANKSTON III is Professor of Sociology at Tulane University and author of Public Education– America’s Civil Religion: A Social History. R obert A. Nisbet was one of the great social theorists of the twentieth cen- tury and a profound analyst of the nature and sources of social order. In a summary of Nisbet’s thought, Brad Lowell Stone has pointed out that this theorist’s insights all stemmed from a single theme: the destruc- tion of community by the extension of the power of the central state. 1 Nisbet argued that the most effective social relations have existed historically within small, highly localized, face-to- face ties. In the past, the “institutional systems of mutual aid, welfare, education, recreation, and distribution” were primar- ily the products of “family, local commu- nity, church, and the whole network of interpersonal relationships.” 2 Nisbet did not idealize these immediate interpersonal arrangements, but he did maintain that for all their imperfections they have been important sources of personal identity, security, and adaptation to environmen- tal demands. These arrangements of social ties not only fulfilled functions; they were maintained by their functions. The con- tinuing need for families and communities strengthened families and communities. Centralized state power, from Nisbet’s perspective, has resulted in serious prob- lems for modern societies. It has weakened traditional and immediate institutions, such as the family, without being able to replace fully the functions of those insti- tutions. This has created settlements of atomized individuals in place of true com- munities as well as undermined the abili- ties of those individuals to work together for common goals. The egalitarian inter- ventions of political power in society, at the same time, have introduced new tyrannies for the sake of universal level- ing. The history of the growth of federal control of American public schools pro- vides both an excellent illustration of and empirical support for Nisbet’s thesis. For that reason, Nisbet’s conceptualization can also help us understand the contemporary situation of our schools and raise questions about recent and current trends in educa- tional policy. I. The foundation of American political life, the U.S. Constitution, makes no reference to schools or education. The great contro- versy around the adoption of the Consti- tution concerned how much power the