Problems & Political Issues in Education

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Problems and controversy exist in these areas, among others:

• Higher Education
• Costs
  One aspect of higher education that is non-controversial in the sense that everyone shares the same opinion, is that the cost of college to students is excessivly high and rising fast, faster than the general cost of living or of inflation. In October, 2004, CNN published statistics about the costs of higher education, and more particularly about the direct cost to students and their families of college education, which showed that the average cost of a year in college in public institutions was $11,354, and in private colleges (which are far more numerous) $27,516. What is more controversial is what the causes are and what can be done.
  
  Information reported in an article pbulished by CNN in October 2006 shows tuition (i.e., the fees paid directly to the college to confirm official enrollment) to average $5,836 per year in four-year public (i.e., tax-supported) institutions, and $22,218 in four-year private ones, with the total cost for each amounting to $12,796 (public) and $30,367 (private). (http://money.cnn.com/2006/10/24/pf/college/college_costs/index.htm)
  One component, though certainly not the only one, is the high salaries and other costs associated with the employment of "academic superstars", professors of international reputation who are able to negotiate not only salary scales but also other working conditions, such as laboratories, research and teaching assistants, and so on, which may engender very high costs for the institution.
  In any case, fees paid by students are not the only source of income for institutions of higher education. One consequence of the situation is that University Presidents are often valued as highly for their fund-raising skills as for their academic accomplishments.
• Admissions criteria
  Since spaces are limited and competition for admission to the most highly-reputed colleges is intense, the criteria they use for choosing among the often very highly qualified applicants are the object of intense scrutiny. No-one, of course, contests academic excellence as a criterion of admission to academically excellent colleges. Other factors, however, are more controversial, insofar as they give special consideration and even special treatment to applicants for reasons that are marginal at best to the fundamental purpose of an institution of education, i.e., the transmission of knowledge.
• Non-Academic considerations
• Athletics
  For a variety of reasons, US colleges and universities often have very active and very high-quality sports teams in many sports, including (American) football, basketball, baseball, and many others. Having a successful football or basketball team has become a high priority for many colleges, if only because of potential media exposure. As a result, excellent athletes are at an advantage when they apply for certain colleges, in particular those associated with certain large state university campuses.
• "Legacies"
  Many colleges, especially small, extremely selective ones, give special consideration to the children of alumni (i.e., of former students at the college), which tends to perpetuate a certain degree of inherited elitism.
• Affirmative action
  Although most people would agree that US society is not as egalitarian as it might and perhaps should be, attempts at what is sometimes called "social engineering" are also highly controversial. In particular, specific measures adopted by government agencies, schools and businesses to attempt to overcome the effects of racial discrimination, often grouped under the heading of "affirmative action", have often been criticized.
  See more on affirmative action, including some important Supreme Court decisions, here.
• Primary & Secondary Education
• In the last fifty years, the issue of the quality of and the results achieved by public education has been linked with that of the role of the Federal government. The success of the USSR in launching the first-ever space vehicle ("Sputnik", in 1957) was perceived as an enormous Though the federal government has no Constitutional authority in the area of education (the enumerated powers of Article I make no mention of education), it is clearly in the interest of any government to promote education and a well-educated citizenry.
• => Testing (No Child Left Behind Act [2002]) (see more here)
• Curriculum content
• History
• Science(s) [& religion]
• Scopes 1925
• Creationism
• Intelligent design