Problemas Educativos En America

Issues with the department of education:
An analytical essay on problems with the department of education
and reasons why the federal government should terminate its existence.

By

Hector Jair Moreno

Dr. Larry E. Carter

POLS 3303

11/1/2012

Introduction

Since the foundation of the department of education by Jimmy Carter, there have been several arguments about the structureand management of federal resources that go towards education. Many political analysts and experts argue that the department of education should be abolished and all educative responsibility should be left to the states, reasons vary from the mishandling of funds, the increasing amount of bureaucrats working for the system without improving it, the government’s amount of spending that has lackedto create many results in students across the country, loopholes in the system that have made tax dollars be spent without necessity, and the staging embarrassing situation of education that has left children and the United States behind several countries in math and science.
In this analytical essay I will talk about several problems that the department of education has created for the UnitedStates public system of education, history of its foundation, reasons of its foundation, issues that have risen since its establishment such as the increase of federal spending, the lack of positive results from the federal stronghold on education, arguments and new ways to confront the problem, and in conclusion reasons why the federal government should leave the responsibility to the states, whichrecently have asked for waivers from the federal government to take charge of the education role and move back performance deadlines created by the DoE in mathematics and science, since most states labeled as impossible to meet due to the fact that every state and district differs in educational standards.

The U.S. Department of Education is always facing problems. Good shares of thoseproblems are associated with the budget, and how to best distribute the U.S. Government's monies to the states to support education programs. The Department of Education administers student loans and works to improve educational methods to better equip teachers (Jones). There is a constant battle to generate accurate statistics and to interpret them so that a realistic picture of education in the U.S.can be generated and maintained.
In 1979 Jimmy Carter formed the Department of Education under pressure from teachers unions. The federal funds were supposed to go to the poorer states and school districts under a program called Title 1, but Congress decided that the money should be distributed to all school districts because they all wanted a share, doing the poorer districts the harm ofsometimes not giving them enough funds they need and give more to affluent school districts that don’t (Koedel). The foundation of the system came also after fears of the Soviet Union’s expansion on the science field, after the launching of Sputnik by the Soviets, the American government felt it should increase its efforts to promote higher education to compete against the Soviets quick advancement intechnology, but even though the Department of Educations’ main goal is to put young American’s forward in these fields, during the last four decades statistics have shown how the mishandling of resources by the federal government and the increased amount of bureaucrats running the system have created gaping holes which have not only affected our international standing, but also have hemorrhagedmillions of dollars from tax payers money making only about 81% of the departments spending going back to the states, making the government spend more and more money getting fewer results.
Letting the federal government settle education issues and policies is not a good idea and the fact that teachers in public schools are part of unions causes problems in the most important issue in education,...