Issues facing the nation

Issues Facing America The General Welfare- Issues Affecting Individual Well-Being 7. Quality Education For All The nation’s public schools set an enrollment record in 1999 with more than 53 million children enrolled; now public education has been criticized by some as not teaching all children effectively. The consistency of public school’s poor test results and low graduation rates attest to this. As a result to these truths, many taxpayers are criticizing public schools and demanding for better results. With all this, Americans express their faith in the ability of public education to address the needs of the greater society. For a very long time public education in the United States promised quality education for all children regardless of ethnicity, race, or income. Many people suggest that the education system perpetuates poverty and disadvantage by providing rich and poor schools with complete contrasts in learning environments and physical surroundings. Ethnic minority students are more likely to attend the lower-quality urban schools. While there have been many efforts to improve this inequality of opportunity, such efforts are only the first step in achieving equity, even with millions of dollars invested in federal programs.
Critics of American public education argue that the United States is unable to educate all children effectively, partly because of the highly bureaucratic nature of its governance structure. Attached to most federal government funding are layers of rules burdened by paperwork and regulation; thus, federal programs become difficult to implement or change. American public education has, since 1980, endured reform after reform, with few reforms sustained over the long-term, and little to show for the effort except frustration and lack of clarity in the mission of the reforms.
Our public schools face many challenges but there is no evidence