This article summarizes and assesses federal K-12 compensatory education policies during the past six decades. It focuses on the centerpiece of that effort, Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Related programs such as America 2000, Goals 2000, No Child Left Behind, and Every Student Succeeds Act are discussed. It analyzes the increasing use of ambitious federal education goals since the 1990s as well as greater reliance on high-stakes testing. It also considers the role of presidents as well as governors in this process.

This paper reviews Australian Government actions related to environmental education, particularly in the past decade, and examines the actions forthcoming from two national action plans (Environment Australia, 2000 and DEWHA, 2009), the implementation strategy for the Decade of ESD (DEWHA, 2006) and developments related to the Australian Curriculum. This analysis is inspired by the Australian-ness of the metaphor of the curriculum as a jigsaw puzzle suggested by Robottom (1987), the seemingly constant battle for survival in the formal curriculum that environmental education has faced since the 1970s (Fensham, 1990; Gough, 1997), and the ongoing tensions between science education and environmental education in Australia's formal school curriculum.