Cited: Google News

Both Democrats and Republicans are getting set for a battle over education reform as part of their platforms going into the 2012 election. VP Joseph Biden, on a recent trip to a high school in Columbus, Ohio, stressed the importance of higher education in an address to the students and faculty. He said that the Obama Administration is doing all that it can to help in forming and advancing education in the United States and they they will continue to be at the forefront of this battle going forward. He said that they are committed to making sure that every family can send their children to college if they so choose.

On the other side of the aisle, Republican front-runner, Mitt Romney has campaigned on increasing the standards that students have to meet while also advocating reform at the teacher level with stronger and stricter evaluations mandated throughout schools in the U.S. However, a significant point of departure for the two camps comes in who, or what is in charge of education policy and legislation. While the Democrats have long held that the federal government has a significant role to play in laying out education standards, the Republicans feel that this is the role of the state government with many of the Republican candidates for the Presidency advocating getting rid of the federal Department of Education as a Cabinet level post.

Secretary of Education Duncan said that the Obama Administration has dramatically simplified many of the bureaucratic nightmares that had previously been preventing any progress on education reform such as the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or FASA, while at the same time creating Pay-As-You-Earn, which caps loan repayments to a maximum of 10% of what you earn.

My take:

Education will continue to be little more than a political shuttlecock with both sides paying little more than lip service to the problem until there is a real crisis. Right now, money will be the only concern of both sides of the aisle and issues that either put money into their pockets or the corporations that support them.

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