What Are Conservative Educational Policies?
Government policies affecting public education often involve conflict along ideological lines, with conservatives advocating policies that differ from those of their liberal or progressive counterparts. The conservative approach to education emphasizes greater decision making power for families and local school systems, as well as expanded school choice.
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Function
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Conservatives advocate educational policies that reflect their overall belief in less government involvement in education at the federal level and giving power over educational decisions to states, local school boards, and families.
Types
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Conservative educational policies include deregulatory actions that reduce the number of federal and state rules with which school systems must comply. These include areas such as special education, teacher certification, and busing intended to achieve racial integration. Other policies advocate greater school choice, such as voucher programs and charter schools.
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Effects
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Conservatives contend that families and local communities, rather than the federal government, know what is best for their children and schools. Critics claim that reduced regulation could increase race- and class-based segregation, as well as reduce educational accountability.
Theories/Speculation
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School choice policies, such as vouchers and charter schools, apply a market metaphor to education, with families as consumers and schools as providers of goods and services. Conservatives theorize that families will choose the school--private or public--that supplies the educational services they want for their children.
Features
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Voucher systems offer parents a taxpayer-funded voucher, worth a set amount of money, which families can redeem for tuition costs at the school of their choice, including a private or religious school.
Considerations
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Opponents claim school-choice programs provide a means for wealthy families to flee troubled school systems, leaving behind poor children. They also claim that voucher systems, by allowing tax-funded vouchers for religious schools, violate church-state separation.
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