Education Policy

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Education Policy
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The Context of American Education Policy
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Education Policy

• U.S. has been a world leader in public education
• Interaction has occurred at the state and local
  levels
• During 1990s federal government became more
  involved through expenditures and other
  mechanisms
• Question of education quality also has become
  increasingly important

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Why Government Involvement?

• Ensures continuation of democracy
• Gives people chances to better themselves
  social mobility
• Social integration and assimilation
• Provides an emphasis on governance at the state
  and local levels

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Major Policies Primary Secondary

• Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)
• Goal to secure more extensive funding from the
  federal government
• Issues/concerns
• Concern that local govt would lose control
• Funding of parochial schools
• No Child Left Behind Act
• Technically a reauthorization of ESEA
• More on this later

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Major Policies Higher Education

• Federal govt has traditionally been more
  involved in higher education than in primary
  secondary education
• Colleges universities
• Land-grant college system (Morrill Act of 1862)
• Service academies
• Direct grants
• Funding for individual students
• GI Bill
• Pell Grants
• Loan guarantees

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Problems in Primary Secondary Education
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Funding

• Typically occurs through local property taxes,
  with assistance from the state
• Two significant problems
• Property tax revenues are not buoyant
• Equity issues tax base varies
• Funding problems raise the issue of quality

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Separation of Church and State

• Two key clauses in Constitution
• Establishment Clause
• Free Exercise Clause
• Two major issues
• School prayer
• Government funding of religious institutions

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Quality of Education

• Concerns arise from
• Standardized test scores (e.g. SAT)
• Poor comparisons to international test results
• But
• How to define measure quality
• What are the causes of poor education quality

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Potential Education Reforms

• Aimed at teachers
• Merit pay
• Higher teacher standards
• Better salaries
• Other (firing, etc.)
• Aimed at schools
• Better funding
• Give parents administrators more local control
• School choice vouchers, charter schools
• Allow people to choose schools
• Assumes competition will lead to improvement

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Charter Schools

• Technically, they are public schools
• Operated by entities other than the local school
  district
• Funded by public monies
• A portion of the school districts grants from
  the state go to the charter school
• To date, local tax monies do not

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Charter Schools, cont.

• Southwest Ohio is a hotbed
• Original supporters
• Many schools
• Effectiveness?
• Should their students be subjected to the same
  testing as students in regular public schools?
• What to do if test results are not good? (To
  date, it is not clear that, overall, charter
  school results are better than regular public
  schools. Success in some is offset by poor
  performance in others.)

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Charter Schools, cont.

• Accountability
• How to ensure that public monies are being spent
  for legitimate public purposes, and are being
  properly accounted for
• What to do in cases of poor academic performance

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School Vouchers

• Provide parents with money that they can use to
  pay for their childrens education in schools
  other than their local public schools
• Current uses are limited

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Vouchers Economic Issues

• Is education a pure public good, or is it a
  service subject to market mechanisms
• leaving public schools
• How can they compete w/o
• Who should be eligible for vouchers? Also an
  equity issue

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Vouchers Political Issues

• There are strong interest groups in favor of, and
  opposed to, vouchers. This makes for contentious
  (, perhaps, unending) debate
• Separation of church and state (civil liberties)
• May they be used to allow more students to afford
  private (parochial) schools
• U.S. Supreme Court has ruled yes

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Vouchers Effectiveness

• How is it defined?
• Conflicting data being used by supporters and
  opponents
• Are voucher students performing better?
• Are schools improving (because of voucher-induced
  competition)?

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School Testing Quality

• No Child Left Behind (NCLB)
• More federal involvement
• Implementing accountability
• Testing, state standards
• Highly Qualified teachers
• Federal aid for poorly performing districts,
  followed by financial sanctions if improvement
  goals are not met
• Testing issues
• Teaching to the test
• Biases in the exam

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School Testing Quality, cont.

• Economic issues
• Testing costs, who bears them
• Is the amount of federal aid sufficient
• Political issues
• Initially enjoyed strong bipartisan support
• Funding
• Major teaching interest groups oppose it

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NCLB Is Up For Renewal

• President Obama sent a message to Congress on
  March 15 outlining his views on this
• Secretary of Education Arne Duncan testified
  before a Senate Committee on the administrations
  proposal on March 17
• Raise standards
• Reward excellence growth
• Increase local control flexibility, maintain
  focus on equity closing achievement gaps
• All students to be ready to succeed in college
  the workplace by 2020

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School Testing Quality, cont.

• Effectiveness
• Importance of definition measurement
• Different results from different studies
• Equity ethical issues
• Achievement gaps
• Federal government intruding on state policies

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Issues in Higher Education

• Affirmative action
• Reasons for it
• Concerns about it
• What criteria should be used to evaluate programs
• Cost of higher education
• What should govt role be

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