When President Reagan took office in January 1981, the federal government had a four-fold function in public secondary and elementary education that included financing high-cost programs of overriding national significance and advancing the cause of civil rights throughout the nation. According to Reagan's "new federalism," the role of the federal government in education would allegedly stay substantially as it had been under the previous four presidents. In fact, however, such Reagan administration proposals as a 50 percent cut in the federal budget's support of school programs from 1980 to 1983 and the dismantling of the United States Department of Education suggest that Reagan's "new federalism" may merely represent a return to the "old federalism" that existed in 1917 before enactment of the United States Vocational Education and Child Nutrition Acts. The federal role in education is not likely to diminish as a result of Reagan's policies. Instead, the weight of federal involvement will be transferred increasingly from the executive branch to the legislative and judicial branches. School board members and administrators have a responsibility to communicate the importance of education as a national investment and to encourage sound partnership among federal, state, and local governments. (JBM)