Education Policy: Is it really thought out?

I have chosen to blog about the education policy in the United States. First I had to look up what public policy truly was. In the book it states that public policy is the sum of government activities, whether pursued directly or through agents, as those activities have an influence on the lives of citizens. There are three separate levels of policy. First there is policy choice which is their decisions that will affect the lives of citizens. Secondly is policy outputs and there are the policy choices being put into action. Lastly is policy impacts and this shows the effects that the policy choices and outputs have on the citizens.

After finding out what policy means and really looking into what policy entails, I decided to look at what the government is doing with the education policy, considering I’m becoming a teacher. Throughout the past 100 years and even before that, education has always been a topic with the United States. The education system can be a very important topic for a few years, than it will be dropped and not picked back up again until the national scores come back in. In 1989 our schools scored a 1.99 and that’s a C+ for our nation. In Europe they were scoring in the range of a 3.5 to a 4.0 which is a B+ to an A. This made out nation think strongly about what’s happening in our public schools.

Every time the taxes rise people always ask why and what is this extra money going to do or what is may be going towards. Most of these policies give our school’s the ability to purchase new books, pay teachers overtime for extra curricular activities, well educated teachers and new technology.

One of the policies for education was held under George H. W. Bush and this was titled “America 2000: An Education Strategy.” This plan had four parts to it. First was National Testing, this is for communities so they have the ability to test their students and see if they are reaching their school standards and the national standards. Secondly the federal government would open 535 new schools which would make class sizes smaller and there would be more teacher student time. Thirdly he wanted to improve the teachers and make sure each student is getting the correct education for their schools curriculum. Lastly, George Bush wanted parents and students to have a “choice” to be able to choose what level of difficulty their children can handle or which level of difficulty they want their children to be dealing with. Even though this policy was very thought out and seems to be the perfect education system, like many other policies, not much of this policy has worked.

The education system needs more work to be done and will need new policies because as technology and other new fundamentals for the changes constantly occurring throughout education, we will need money and policies passed to help support our future generations.

Julie Biondi