Addressing Social Problem

Addressing Social Problem

Introduction

This paper intends to explore the ways to address the one of the most phenomenal social issues in the society. The social concern that was chosen earlier is 'Public Education'in the society. Public education has attracted much attention in the recent times. There have been too many issues prevailing in the educational sector of United States, which needs to be addressed.

Discussion

Historical Record

Source: http://www.heritage.org

Proposed Public Education Policy

To improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public schools, a variety of reform strategies have been proposed on the policy front. These include restructuring the school organization and decision-making process, improving accountability, and providing more choice among schools as reflected in policies such as open enrollment programs that increase choice in the public school system or private school vouchers and tuition tax credits between public and private schools. In this paper, the policy implications and empirical evidence on school choice and accountability measures are discussed to highlight the policy relevance of economic analysis in education.

Despite the controversy of school choice debate, there are now a number of U.S. states implementing various forms of school choice programs: Florida, Arizona, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Puerto Rico have adopted some forms of tax credit, deductions, or both; Colorado, Florida, the District of Columbia, Wisconsin and Ohio have publicly funded school voucher programs in place; and Maine, Vermont, and New York have voucher programs funded by private organizations. Thus, in this proposed policy, every state shall have variety of choice in school programs.

Class Size

A popular policy proposal is to reduce class size to improve student performance. With smaller class sizes, students can have more personal interactions with teachers during class time. However, as pointed out by Hoxby, C. (2000), measuring the impact of class size has been difficult because the greater part of class size variation documented in administrative data “is the result of choice made by parents, schooling providers, or courts and legislatures” (p. 1240). The observed variations in class sizes, therefore, are correlated with some unobservable factors that might be correlated with student performance.

Choice within the Public System

In addition to an increase in school choice from private schools, there are other forms of choice within the public system for example, open enrollment policies, magnet schools, and charter schools. Students in North America typically attend a neighborhood public school assigned within the school attendance boundary, and the application to out-of-boundary schools varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction (Bayer, Fernando & McMillan, 2007).

Open enrollment policies allow a student to transfer to another school either within or outside his or her school attendance area. This form of choice is indeed the most prominent form of choice available to students in the public system.

Magnet schools are schools operated under the public system, but they exist outside of the zoned boundaries and offer academic or other programs that are different from the regular public schools to attract enrollment.

Charter schools, on the other hand, are not subjected to the administrative policies within the public ...