Making State and Local Policy
•Education
•A.
Education as a public function
•1. Plato, Aristotle, and Jefferson saw an
educated citizenry as essential
to good government
•2. Free compulsory public education is now an
established fact, but many had
opposed it in the past as leading to social
unrest and giving government control over the young
•3. State and local governments have primary
responsibility for
education; federal dollars have been declining
•a. One-third of all
state and local expenditures are fore education
•b. The state percentage
varies greatly; state role is increasing
recently as a way of equalizing access
across local school
districts