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Public Education and Federalism

Adam Prince

Local Responsibilities

Local Governments have locally elected school boards that have the same responsibilities as the State Governments do when it comes to education. They do things like maintaining educational standards, develop curricula, and maintain educational excellence for the schools throughout the entire district.

The issue of education is primarily an issue dealt with at either the state or local level. Barely anything to do with education is dealt with by the National Government. It is a reserved power for the States since nothing in the Constitution requires that the Federal Government do anything to deal with education. With the help of cooperative federalism, though, the United States has made an effort to be able to have the Federal Government make laws and help step in.

National Responsibilities

Traditionally, the Federal Government has not been heavily involved in education policies, that has been left to be dealt with at the state and local levels. Starting with President George W. Bush, the Federal Government has become more involved than in previous years. They have been creating new laws and regulations that they feel the state and local levels need to follow, otherwise they will deal with serious consequences.

Sources

http://phys.org/news/2012-08-national-policy-.html

http://www.statelocalgov.net/50states-education.cfm

Government Agencies

State Responsibilities

The State Governments set the standards necessary for each school to follow and maintain. These standards include creating standardized tests to measure the overall knowledge of the student body at each school district throughout the state. They also manage the state and federal grant funds, develop curricula, and promote excellence in education. Again, the powers given to the states for education are reserved powers, as it is not written in the Constitution that power for education is set aside for any one level of government.

Policies and Interactions of the National, State, and Local Levels of Government

National Government

Recently, they have enacted the No Child Left Behind policy. This is to make sure that all students pass school all the way up to high school. This is mainly used to fix the achievement gap between the different racial groups. Also, in 1965, they enacted the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which was used to give poorer and disadvantaged children a chance at education as part of the "War on Poverty." The National Government makes laws and policies that the states and local governments must follow.

Department of Education-National

State Departments of Education-State

School Districts-Local

State Governments

Local Governments

The State Governments have almost all of the power in policy making and act independently of each other, creating their own policies that they feel are proper and fitting for their own state. The only time they have the exact same policy is when the National Government creates a law or policy. When that happens, all of the State governments must follow these laws or policies. When the State Governments create a law or policy, they do this for all of the Local Governments, which those governments all must follow.

When it comes to law making and policies for education, the Local Government does not have much of a say on the large scale. The only things they can make laws and policies for are for the schools in their city/district. They have to obey all of the laws and policies that are put forth by both the National and State Governments.

As of right now, the area of education is being dealt with by the right level of government, the States, although with what has been going on lately, it seems to me that the power could shift to the National Government in the foreseeable future. The States should hold the power, like they do now, because they know the region where they make policies better than the National Government does, so they know what policies would and would not help that region. The one change I would make would be to take away more power from the National Government, making them almost useless in creating policies for each and every state.

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