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Education policy consists of the principles and policy decisions that influence the field of
education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Var ...
, as well as the collection of laws and rules that govern the operation of
education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Var ...
systems. Education governance may be shared between the local, state, and federal government at varying levels. Some analysts see education policy in terms of social engineering. Education takes place in many forms for many purposes through many institutions. Examples of such educational institutions may include
early childhood education Early childhood education (ECE), also known as nursery education, is a branch of education theory that relates to the teaching of children (formally and informally) from birth up to the age of eight. Traditionally, this is up to the equivale ...
centers,
kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cent ...
to
12th grade Twelfth grade, 12th grade, senior year, or grade 12 is the final year of secondary school in most of North America. In other regions, it may also be referred to as class 12 or Year 13. In most countries, students are usually between the ages of 17 ...
schools, two- and four-year colleges or
universities A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...
, graduate and professional education institutes, adult-education establishments, and job-training schemes. The educational goals of these institutions influence education policy. Furthermore, these education policies can affect the education people engage in at all ages. Examples of areas subject to debate in education policy, specifically from the field of schools, include school size, class size, school choice, school
privatization Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...
, police in schools, tracking, teacher selection, education and certification, teacher pay, teaching methods, curricular content, graduation requirements, school-infrastructure investment, and the values that schools are expected to uphold and model. Issues in education policy also address problems within higher education. The Pell Institute analyzes the barriers experienced by teachers and students within community colleges and universities. These issues involve undocumented students, sex education, and federal-grant aides. Education policy analysis is the scholarly study of education policy. It seeks to answer questions about the purpose of education, the objectives (societal and personal) that it is designed to attain, the methods for attaining them and the tools for measuring their success or failure. Research intended to inform education policy is carried out in a wide variety of institutions and in many academic disciplines. For example, researchers are affiliated with schools and departments of
education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Var ...
,
public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public ...
,
psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between ...
, economics,
sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...
, and
human development Human development may refer to: * Development of the human body * Developmental psychology * Human development (economics) * Human Development Index, an index used to rank countries by level of human development * Human evolution Human evolut ...
. Additionally, sociology,
political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
, economics, and
law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vari ...
are all disciplines that can be used to better understand how education systems function, what their impacts are, and how policies might be changed for different conditions. Education policy is sometimes considered a sub-field of
social policy Social policy is a plan or action of government or institutional agencies which aim to improve or reform society. Some professionals and universities consider social policy a subset of public policy, while other practitioners characterize soci ...
and public policy. Examples of education policy analysis may be found in such
academic journal An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and ...
s as '' Education Policy Analysis Archives'' and in university-policy centers such as the
National Education Policy Center The National Education Policy Center (NEPC) is a non-profit education policy research center located in the School of Education at the University of Colorado at Boulder. It was founded in 2010 and is funded by a variety of governmental organizati ...
housed at the
University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado sys ...
.


Education reform in the United States

Over the past 30 years, policymakers have made a steady increase at the state and federal levels of government in their involvement of US schools. According to the
Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution The Tenth Amendment (Amendment X) to the United States Constitution, a part of the Bill of Rights, was ratified on December 15, 1791. It expresses the principle of federalism, also known as states' rights, by stating that the federal governmen ...
, state governments have the main authority on education. State governments spend most of their budgets funding schools, whereas only a small portion of the federal budget is allocated to education. The federal government advances their role by building on state and local education policies. Over time, the role of the federal government grew through federal education policies that affected the funding and evaluation of education. For example, the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) was established in 1958 to increase federal funding to schools, and the
National Assessment of Educational Progress The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the largest continuing and nationally representative assessment of what U.S. students know and can do in various subjects. NAEP is a congressionally mandated project administered by the ...
was created to track and compare student performance in academic subjects across the states. Moreover, the
United States Department of Education The United States Department of Education is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government. It began operating on May 4, 1980, having been created after the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was split into the Departme ...
was created in 1979.
Education reform Education reform is the name given to the goal of changing public education. The meaning and education methods have changed through debates over what content or experiences result in an educated individual or an educated society. Historically, t ...
is currently being seen as a "tangled web" due to the nature of education authority. Some education policies are being defined at either the federal, state or local level and in most cases, their authorities overlap one another. This manner of authority has led many to believe there is an inefficiency within education governance. Compared to other
OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...
countries, educational governance in the US is more decentralized and most of its autonomy is found within the state and district levels. The reason for this is that US citizens put an emphasis on individual rights and fear federal government overreach. A recent report by the National Center on Education and the Economy, believes that the education system is neither coherent nor likely to see improvements due to the nature of it. A
critical race theory Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary examination, by social and civil-rights scholars and activists, of how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity. Go ...
analysis of the history of education reform in the United States reveals the influence of systemic racism on educational policy. Historically, educational policy changes have resulted via progress from protest, and such progress met with pushback. In the state of Texas during the 84th Legislature, there were several education reform bills filed and sponsored by many education reform groups, such as Texans for Education Reform. Lawmakers want to create more involvement at the local level, and more transparency in our public schools. These groups are being pressured and opposed by teachers' unions saying that accountability and transparency policies are targeting educators, and that they are trying to hold them responsible for the education system.


Teacher policy

Teacher policy is education policy that addresses the preparation, recruitment, and retention of teachers. A teacher policy is guided by the same overall vision and essential characteristics as the wider education policy: it should be strategic, holistic, feasible, sustainable, and context-sensitive. Overall objectives and major challenges to be addressed, the funding to achieve these objectives, the demographic parameters of the learner population and the human resources required to achieve universally accessible quality education should all be addressed in a comprehensive teacher policy.


Nine key dimensions

Nine key dimensions are considered crucial to any comprehensive teacher policy: Teacher Recruitment and Retention, Teacher education (initial and continuing), Deployment, Career Structures/Paths, Teacher Employment and Working Conditions, Teach Reward and Remuneration, Teacher Standards, Teacher Accountability, and School Governance.


Teacher Recruitment and Retention

An effective education system must have a safe way to attract,
recruit __NOTOC__ Recruit can refer to: Military * Military recruitment * Recruit training, in the military * ''Rekrut'' (English: Recruit), a military recruit or low rank in German-speaking countries * Seaman recruit Books *''Le Réquisitionnaire'' (En ...
and retain outstanding educators. There has been a growing demand for teachers but the supply continues to diminish and many of them leave their profession. This development is a threat to the "academic and economic welfare of students". It affects learning and drain taxpayers’ money. The federal and state governments along with the districts must invest in complete human capital systems. It is the best approach in preparing and retaining committed and capable mentors for the long-term. A reasonable strategy in talent management for the education sector must focus on recruitment, development, and retention of intelligent and efficient teachers.


Teacher Education (Initial and Continuing)

Teachers need to go back to school periodically to become better educators. Good mentors can become outstanding by going further than textbooks. This is the logic behind continuing education. Technology in the form of web-based workshops and lectures will be helpful. School administrators and district officials must push their teachers to make use of available resources and opportunities to continue the learning process. Conferences with workshops are also valuable because these activities provide teachers with tools for integration of technology in the classrooms and Continuing Professional Development Units in boosting their careers. School administrators must ensure that teachers are not only competent in classroom management but also in protecting students from harm such as bullying.


Gender equality

Quality and timely
data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted. ...
and evidence are key factors for policy-making, planning and the delivery to advance
gender equality Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing d ...
in and through
education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Var ...
. They can help countries to identify and analyse gendered patterns and trends, and better plan and target resources to address gender inequalities. They can also help to identify and inform interventions that influence participation, learning and
empowerment Empowerment is the degree of autonomy and self-determination in people and in communities. This enables them to represent their interests in a responsible and self-determined way, acting on their own authority. It is the process of becoming strong ...
, from
early childhood Early childhood is a stage in human development following infancy and preceding middle childhood. It generally includes toddlerhood and some time afterward. Play age is an unspecific designation approximately within the scope of early childhood. ...
to
tertiary education Tertiary education, also referred to as third-level, third-stage or post-secondary education, is the educational level following the completion of secondary education. The World Bank, for example, defines tertiary education as including univer ...
and beyond. Though the SDG 4 monitoring framework is a step forward in the policy process, a complete monitoring framework for gender equality in and through education should include indicators that consider: social and
gender norms A gender role, also known as a sex role, is a social role encompassing a range of behaviors and attitudes that are generally considered acceptable, appropriate, or desirable for a person based on that person's sex. Gender roles are usually cent ...
, values and attitudes (many of which can be influenced by education); education
law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vari ...
s and
policies Policy is a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by a governance body within an organ ...
, as well legislation and policies outside of the education system; resource distribution; and teaching and learning practices and environments.Unterhalter E. 2015. ‘Measuring Gender Inequality and Equality in Education’, Concept paper prepared for workshop Beyond Parity: Measuring Gender Equality in Education, London, 18–19 September 2015. London, University College of London, Institute of Education. Efforts are also needed to track disparities in informal and non-formal learning contexts with a
lifelong learning Lifelong learning is the "ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated"Department of Education and Science (2000).Learning for Life: Paper on Adult Education Dublin: Stationery Office. pursuit of knowledge for either personal or professional reasons ...
approach, and to ensure that data are collected on the most excluded.


See also

* Education policy in Brazil *
Higher education policy Higher education policy refers to education policy for higher education institutions such as universities, specifically how they are organised, funded, and operated in a society. According to Ansell (2006) there are "three different institutional ...


Sources

* *


References

Information on education policy, OECD - Contains indicators and information about education policy in OECD countries.


External links


OECD's Education GPS: a review of education policy analysis and statistics.
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