In the summer of 1744, Indian chiefs from the six Iroquois nations came to Lancaster to meet with representatives of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia to resolve land disputes.
The primary functions of the Department of Education are to establish policy for, administer and coordinate most federal assistance to education, collect data on US schools, and to enforce federal educational laws regarding privacy and civil rights..
Today, ED operates programs that touch on every area and level of education. The Department's elementary and secondary programs annually serve nearly 18,200 school districts and over 50 million students attending roughly 98,000 public schools and 32,000 private schools.