Education is greatly related to federalism, especially NCLB. No Child Left Behind was signed and put into affect by George W. Bush on Janauary 8,2002. This program allows each state to set their own standards. These schools have to give tests to see each childs ability in math and english. The students are supposed to improve each year. The problem, only a certain amount of money is given to each state from the federal government, and each state is left up to itself to raise the rest of the money for their public schools. Not all states can raise this needed money, which causes problems in the public schools, and then the kids don't get the proper education, and then they don't meet the requirements and goals set by their state.
This issue is really controversial because many people believe that education isn't a federal issue. Some believe it's only a state and local issue, and that the federal government has stepped past their boundaries of power. It's also seen as an “unfunded mandate” between the state and federal government, and sets the teachers and kids up for failure from the start.
Specifically in New Orleans there has been more challenges because of Katrina. First of all, there aren't nearly as many students enrolled in the public or charter schools. Charter schools are more popular now because this was the states way to solve the problem of failing public schools. The federal government cannot just hand over more money to one state, Louisiana, because they need it. If they did, this would cause problems with other states that need the money as well. Now that charter schools are so common, another change was made: schools have school choice. This means that kids don't have to live in a certain area anymore to go to a public/charter school. They can go to whichever school, no matter where they live. This does cause some problems, because the charter schools are a little more selective, so the kids living across the street may not be able to make it in so has to find another school. There are many more problems that the Cowen video goes into as well.
The point in George W. Bushs' presidency that seemed like such a huge accomplishment has quickly gone downhill. The federal government has yet to fix many of the kinks in this system. Obama does have plans as to how to reform this system, but kids suffer every day from the lack of planning in the passing of this law 9 years ago.
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A great overview of how federalism affects the issue of education, Mattie. You are exactly right that traditionally in this country education has been a state and local issue rather than a national one and you have a great grasp of why NCLB was so important in defining a new role for the federal government in this area. The Obama administration is seeking to change the way that NCLB is implemented, specifically devolving more power to the states in order to give them more flexibility in reaching the goal of improvement in education. However, his plans have received criticism from powerful teachers' group. Obama supports charter schools which means he would approve of recent trends in NOLA. I'm wondering if you could tackle your upcoming bill from the point of view of revising how NCLB is implemented or supporting the move toward more charter schools. If that's the case, you'd need to understand the benefits of charter schools for students versus other ways of organizing school districts.
ReplyDeleteThis was a good summary article: http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/15/obama.education/index.html