| Education is an instrument of the broader social order. | | | | as subjects of increasing politicization, and even if |
| When society changes, education, sooner or later, | | | | only at a glacial pace, schools and colleges do change. |
| also changes. Few activities or agencies, however, | | | | Formal education at the onset of the twenty-first |
| change as slowly, or in such small increments, as | | | | century exhibited many differences from that of |
| formal education–both schools and colleges as | | | | even thirty years previous, and it certainly was |
| well as both public and private institutions. Education's | | | | different from what children and parents experienced |
| roots are deep and wide, penetrating almost every | | | | in the early part of the twentieth century. The Basics |
| facet of society. Hence, education is subject to | | | | of Educational Policy Societies rely upon the informal |
| virtually every political force, including those that want | | | | socialization of youth and immigrants and the formal |
| change and those that want to protect the status | | | | education of citizens to preserve the polity and |
| quo. Public K–12 education–which operates | | | | facilitate pursuit of individuals' collective and personal |
| across fifty states, 14,000 local school districts, and | | | | preferences. Because of this mediating role in |
| 100,000 schools; involves 5 million employees and | | | | maintaining a society, formal education systems, and |
| more than 48 million students; and costs more than | | | | those who steer them, are unusually sensitive to |
| $2 billion each day–is too large, too costly, and | | | | alterations in citizens' will or shifts in decision makers' |
| too enmeshed in political dynamics to change quickly. | | | | views. When a society perceives itself subjected to |
| Postsecondary institutions–colleges and | | | | threat or is engrossed in a major economic, |
| universities–have become equally ponderous. With | | | | technological, demographic, or ecological |
| the advent of post– World War II enrollment | | | | transformation, the education system is a principal |
| increases; the significance of university-based | | | | instrument to which it turns in order to adjust to |
| research for preserving the nation's economic, | | | | change and seek a new social equilibrium. The larger |
| medical, and military preeminence; and the substantial | | | | and more democratic a society, the less linear and |
| assumption of student financial aid by government, | | | | less transparent its education system alterations will |
| higher education also has become a major feature of | | | | be. In a dictatorship or narrow oligarchy, it is relatively |
| the political landscape and become engulfed by much | | | | easy to change an education system. In the booming, |
| of the inertia that immobilizes lower schools. For most | | | | buzzing cacophony of the open, modern information |
| of American history, the nation's most prestigious | | | | age and a globally interdependent society, education |
| elementary and secondary schools and elite colleges | | | | reform is episodic, conflict prone, inconsistent, and, |
| have been few in number, and their private charters | | | | sometimes painful. Indeed, the more porous and |
| and religious affiliations have rendered them generally | | | | dynamic a society, the more inconsistent and |
| independent of government. But for colleges and | | | | conflictual its efforts to change its education system |
| universities, nearly all of which, in the early | | | | will appear. Interests deeply rooted in spheres such |
| twenty-first century, are accepting student | | | | as economics, religion, ideology, institutions, |
| financial-aid subsidies from government and engaging | | | | geography, race, and ethnicity will vie to have their |
| in government-sponsored research, this situation has | | | | worldview represented most forcefully in whatever |
| changed. Government now is a major constituent for | | | | education system emerges. These are the centrifugal |
| higher education, both public and private. Even for | | | | forces that threaten the momentum and unity of |
| private preparatory and religious elementary and | | | | any society. Countering these are centripetal |
| secondary schools, the condition of independence | | | | (unifying) forces, mostly institutions, ideologies, and |
| from government could change. If the U.S. Supreme | | | | influential individuals that seek consensus and |
| Court approves allocation of public funds for private | | | | cohesion. It is the tension between these dynamics |
| and religious institutions, private schools could come | | | | that eventually shapes changes to a democracy's |
| under the full umbrella of public policy in the same | | | | education system. |
| way as their public institutional counterparts. Still, even | | | | |