Policy Environment Paper

Policy Environment Paper

Jase Tilley

Education has been at the forefront of the national policy focus for as long as the government has been funding it.  Regardless of decades of legislation enacted, education policy is still highly debated. It is important to discuss the environment in which these debates will be taking place, an environment that has been created by the history of the policy issue as it has proceeded through decades of reform, as well as in the context of our current and past economic hardships and prosperities. Along ideological lines there is disagreement as to where educational policy should be heading, the current environment, from a structural and political perspective, can be characterized as strained, in tandem with an economic environment, portrayed as unequal at best, that has only been propagated by a gap in educational attainment.

        As modernization progresses throughout the United States, and the world, education, particularly higher education, is evermore becoming a pretext for success. While this issue can be considered partisan to some extent, there is a wide consensus between both parties on the importance of education to our nation. Each major political party has a different view on the role of government in education, as such, the political environment for this issue, as it is for most partisan issues, has not been without strife. To get a better understanding of the context of the political environment that current educational policy is being shaped in, it is crucial to look at the recent history of legislation passed.

        In the most recent era of educational policy there has been a major shift in parental authority in regards to their child’s education, as well as an expansion of educational options. In 1983 the National Commission on Excellence in Education released a report called, “A Nation at Risk”. This report declared, “educational institutions seem to have lost sight of the basic purpose of schooling, and of the high expectations and discipled effort to attain them”, going even further to state a warning that a, “ rising tide of mediocrity threatens our very future as a nation and a people”. ^[1]  This report generated massive outcry and launched education policy onto the national agenda.  Leading to a shift of control of educational policy from a local standpoint to a more state and national level. In the period from when the repot was commissioned to current day, there has been an increase of school vouchers, a program to send students to private schools (instead of potentially inadequate public schools), from both a state and national perspective. Standardized testing has also dramatically increased in order to ensure that educational standards are being met. Legislation like ‘No Child Left Behind’ was signed into law to remedy a crisis in educational standards. In addition to the adopted policies above, there was an increase in homeschooling, with the homeschoolers establishing their own National Honor Society in 2003.^[2]  The effectiveness of these policies can be debated, but as a nation we are still striving to create a more effective, and equitable, educational system. This brief history of educational policy establishes an initial environment of tension, at the release of the “A Nation At Risk” report, which led to the next 30 years of policy enactment to correct the disparities outlined in that report. Three decades later, still in search of improving educational policy, the political environment is strained to find answers from policy perspective. A similar strain can be seen from a structural standpoint.