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Federal Education Policy Pros and Cons

March 23, 2009

Sara Goldrick-Rab notes many positives in the Obama administration's education policies, including increasing the Pell Grant, reducing dependence on student loans, and encouraging all citizens to receive a thirteenth year of education. The administration’s education policy retains the central tenets of the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind policy—student assessment, teacher distribution equity—and adds additional support for building state longitudinal data systems that allow districts and schools to track students and learn from their outcomes. Yet she points out that $54 billion of the $100 billion earmarked for new education funding will be absorbed in order to keep schools open in communities where the property tax base has been ravaged by the housing crisis, thereby providing stabilization rather than stimulus. As with most education policies, the decentralized nature of the $54 billion assistance may also alter its impact. More information is available here.