National Government’s Involvement in Education
The federal system of governance has three levels of government: the federal state and local system. In the past, it was the role of the state and local government to oversee various public policies. One policy areas that the local and state government focused on was elementary and secondary education. However, this is gradually changing as the national government begins to take an active role in such public policies. In 2009, for instance, Obama administration passed the American Recovery and Reinvestments bill. The bill focuses on education spending. The national government pumped the money into schools across the country with the expectation that the money will cover any budgetary shortfall. In turn, the government expected states to halt any plans to undertake staff layoff and cutbacks. The government also disbursed funds to uphold IDEA and Title I polices are shared to across states (Hammond, & Hess, 2011). Initially it was the responsibility of state government to fund different public school in it s area. The state also provided statewide educational policies and determined the budget.
Another policy by the national government in education is the No Child Left Behind act (NCLB) of 2001. The bill stipulates that all school going children deserves to acquire quality education. The act thus requires states to develop assessments to ascertain that students are receiving quality education (Yanushevsky, 2011). The national government proposed that only school that adheres to this policy that will receive national government funding.
The national government involvement is vital in the United States. Government should not only be involved in funding but also ensuring that school is instilling knowledge in students in the right way. This is an opinion that most democrats hold. Students must be taught in a manner that prepares them to participate in the outside world (Yanushevsky, 2011). It is only through national government involvements that states will focus on the interest of the child. Policies such as NCLB ensure that all children have an opportunity to education. The national government has a role in streamlining how schools across states function. The overall, purposes of national government intervention is to ensure that all schools are high-performing. High performing schools mean that schools adopt elaborate school curriculum designs. It also means more emphasis on teacher’s qualification that in turns leads to excellent student performance.
Critics, however, argue that the national government involvement in matters of education is a constitutional breach. This is an opinion mainly felt by republicans. Critics point out that education is not mentioned anywhere in the constitution (Hammond, & Hess, 2011). This implies that congress does not have the jurisdiction to set up the department of education and grant it the right to oversee education in different states.
Other critics argue that the national governments approach is manipulative. This is from the perspective that funding to schools across states is dependent on performance. The national government’s approach that only high performing school will receive state funding appears manipulative to many critics. However, critics should strive to view this strategy as helping schools put more efforts in their curriculum and teaching design (Hammond, & Hess, 2011). If a teaching design is not resulting to high performance, then it is only logical that the teaching design is changed. On the other hand, schools that are high performing should continue to receive government funding so as to keep up with the exemplary teaching strategy.
Hammond, L. & Hess, F. (2011). How to rescue educational reforms. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/opinion/how-to-rescue-education-reform.html?_r=0
Yanushevsky, R. (2011). Improving education in the US. Algora Publishing
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