The major public-education issue today is money. How much money do we spend on education? Do we need to spend more? What do we need to spend it on? There have been studies that have proven that the number of dollars that we have spent on public education has not had a positive impact on student achievement. So what is the problem? The problem is that we continue to spend the money on programs that are directed toward the wrong philosophy. The latest initiative was President Bush’s “No student left behind.” In theory that sounds great. Obviously we do not want to leave any child behind. Politically speaking it is a great slogan and did a great deal to get President Bush elected. That within itself is one of the major issues. (problems) Education is a major issue in every political campaign. Politicians continue to come up with programs every four years that promise to solve pubic educations problems. While they may sound good they are designed more to get a politician elected than they are to actually helping public education.

The “NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND” initiative for example, sounded real good. Not only did it take care of all students but it put accountability on schools that were not successful. Citizens today want to put the blame for the lack of success in American schools directly on the schools. The accountability sounded great to the American people. The problem is, what to do when you find out that you still do not have success. You can not close down every school that was not successful according to the No school left behind guidelines. While the program called for greater expectations of students, it does not give students any alternatives in case they are not successful. It also puts other school systems in a compromising and overcrowded state if you close down schools that are not successful on the standardized test. » Read more: Major Issue in Education