The Evolving Role of Government in Education - Essay Example

Further concerns of long-term socio-economic as well as political implications that such preparations portend have been a factor that has driven these debates. Therefore, there has been a consensus that the federal government ought to take matters of education holistically with a view to changing policies and streamlining education, which will be relevant in this century and age (Sunderman, 2010). Indeed, the president and the U.S Secretary in charge of education have made policy intervention calls to address education crises in High Schools with a biased concentration on the schools, which perform dismally, as well as in colleges and career configuration.

In this line, there have been a number and pieces of legislations proposed or enacted by the national congress driven from research findings and recommendations on the best practices that would adequately inform federal policy (Cross, 2004). For instance, funds have been injected under the federal stimulus program, which has gone further in shedding light on the opportunities available to push and create education awareness campaigns for improvement. Further, there have been state-led movements charged with the mandate to evaluate and craft common standardized approaches to greatly way change the American Education (Sunderman, 2010).

Such legislations include the reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). This act was proposed with the view to critically assess the high school crisis so that systems and structures are out in place to enable students graduating from high schools to be adequately ready to take on careers in colleges. In this case, the federal policy is seen to play an important role to ensure that in “reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in away that the policies would be congruent with the changes and common standards initiative” to take the leading role and facilitation of partnership with other players in the education sector (Sunderman, 2010).

The federal role and the Aid Evolution For a long time, about a century, the federal government has been playing a significant role in the enhancement of education in America. It has been the fulcrum about national needs and interests as far as education is concerned. This has been seen in a number of roles over the years in line with democracy and promotion of an educated America. One has been to significantly do away with poverty, promote equity in education access and to respond to the needs of the vulnerable groups in society.

The second role has been promotion of security and enhancement of economic stability across the whole country to ensure it economically competes with other countries (Cross, 2004). One of the predominant areas where the federal role has been witnessed has been in its push for aid in education. Today’s advocacy for elementary and secondary education can be traced back to the year 1938 when a report of the advisory committee on education instigated by the then president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, laid significant facts bare.

On the whole, the report indicated that there were serious disparities among the American states and went further to lay recommendations that the states that were lagging behind should be assisted to promote equity (Sunderman, 2010).