Free Essay About Twentieth Century Education Public Policy In The USA

Introduction

The US has had many struggles over the period of many years. Included in these struggles is their education system. Equality has been a difficulty since the sixties between races, but more so in terms of getting schools on equal par. Thus the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, A Nation at Risk, by the “No Child Left Behind” Act of 2001 has done little to effect any changes.

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was aimed at providing sufficient financial support to schools for the disadvantaged and underprivileged children (Thomas & Brady, 2005). ESEA also acted as a regulatory law to ensure the improvement of education and the efficiency of appropriate grade-level proficiencies (Thomas & Brady, 2005). As the U.S. Department of Education states, it is time to review this law and look at a new angle in which to apply the lessons learnt over the years since 1965 (U.S. Department of Education). Even though the law states that it assists disadvantaged and underprivileged children, the needs of the “historically underserved populations” (U.S. Department of Education) have not been sufficiently serviced. It is, therefore, the Obama administration’s desire to create a new law that would improve on the existing law in order to give all young people access to “high-quality preschools, foster innovation,” and that advances equity and access to better education (U.S. Department of Education).

A Nation at Risk

In 2013, A Nation at Risk turned thirty. It was developed and written by a commission of seventeen professionals from the fields of education, government, and the private sector. The report revealed that the nation was at risk through it education system. This means that nothing has really changed since April 1983 when this report was released. At the time, the report found that the state of the education in the USA was definitely in decline. In the current state of affairs, the education system had not improved much in the last thirty years. What has added to this, according to Graham (2013) is that the situation was made worse over the thirty years, because of the “budget cuts and other reforms.” The major obstacle to the growth of a national education is that the laws and reports are outdated and have hardly assisted in developing a recent education system.

“No Child Left Behind” Act of 2001

A further woe is added to this by the “No Child Left Behind” Act of 2001. This was supposed to be seen as the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary School Act of 1965. The act required that the states develop and give assessment to all schools at particular grade levels. Once the states comply, they will then receive public funding. The difficulty in this is that the schools that do not comply would then not receive any public funding. This does not make sense, because the act would then not fulfill its purpose providing “performance-based grants” to schools (Rudalevige, 2003). It is especially true if the state does not fulfill the assessment requirements, which in many cases are difficult to do. This would mean that this “No Child Left Behind” Act would fail and have failed as the “compensatory-education” would not and have not worked in many states, and thus appears to be a failure.

Conclusion

It seems that the U.S. Department of Education has had an uphill struggle for most of its time of its existence. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965), the report A Nation at Risk (1983), and a more recent act, “No Child Left Behind” Act (2001), have all tried to bring the US education system to a point of providing young and old with a good education, and ensuring that overall the education levels in the USA are improved. However, over the years the evidence is clear that the system has not improved and has, in fact, rather declined to a point of even dysfunctional schools in some areas. Too many schools cannot reach the standards set, and thus fail to receive the financial support required to run a good education system. Furthermore, the result is that the nation continues to be at risk of not complying with a high standard of education.

References

A Nation at Risk (1983). U.S. Department of Education, Archived Information. Retrieved
Elementary and Secondary Education Act. U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved
Education Research Center. (2011, April 19). No Child Left Behind. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org: http://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/no-child-left-behind/
Graham, Edward (April 25, 2013). ‘A Nation at Risk’ Turns 30: Where Did It Take Us? neaToday. Retrieved from http://neatoday.org/2013/04/25/a-nation-at-risk-turns-30-where-did-it-take-us-2/
Rudalevige, A. (2003). The Politics of No Child Left Behind. Retrieved April 16, 2015, from http://educationnext.org/the-politics-of-no-child-left-behind/
Thomas, J.Y. & Brady, K.P. (2005). “The Elementary and Secondary Education Act at 40: Equity, Accountability, and the Evolving Federal Role in Public Education.” Review of Research in Education, 29: 51-67.
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