As Forbes observed in its article, Higher Education Is Now The Most Politically Polarized Institution In America, On Par With The Presidency, "from a talent and economic development perspective, this partisan divide on education will go down as one of the most damaging trends in U.S. history."
BEIJING, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- As the U.S. presidential race enters the final stretch, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, have been presenting voters with their visions on issues like the economy, immigration, and foreign policy, yet leaving education conspicuously absent.
In recent election debates, including those between vice presidential candidates J.D. Vance and Tim Walz, the topic has been avoided entirely. At the same time, both parties are locked in a tug-of-war to shape American classrooms according to their own agendas. As a result, education in America is facing a slew of problems, unaddressed or ignored.
QUALITY DECLINES
Despite the United States being recognized for its educational advancements and high spending in this sector, public confidence in primary and higher education is waning amid concerns over declining education quality.
An April Pew Research Center survey found that 51 percent of Americans believe the public K-12 (from kindergarten to 12th grade) education system is headed in the wrong direction, with most citing insufficient focus on core academic subjects as a major reason.
Similarly, according to a poll by Gallup and the Lumina Foundation in July, Americans are increasingly skeptical about the value and cost of college, with most believing U.S. higher education is on the wrong track. Only 36 percent expressed strong confidence in higher education, down from 57 percent in 2015.
Political polarization has split education policy along party lines: Democrats push for diversity and inclusion in curricula, pushing to incorporate the histories and contributions of racial minorities and LGBTQ+ groups, while Republicans believe education should focus on core subjects like math, science and reading, rather than promoting "political correctness."
Therefore, students become the most unfortunate casualties, finding themselves in classrooms where educational priorities swing wildly depending on who is in power, rather than based on pedagogical needs or students' intellectual growth.
While politicians tussled over issues like book bans, students were increasingly slipping behind in basic academic skills. Numbers clearly indicate a decline in education quality as the partisan divide intensifies.
A global exam result released by U.S. news outlet Axios last December showed U.S. students lagging in math, with 2022 Program for International Student Assessment scores dropping 13 points from 2018. Another assessment by the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) found that average scores for 9-year-olds fell by five points in reading and seven in math since 2020, marking the largest reading decline since 1990 and the first-ever drop in math.
INEQUALITY WORSENS
Partisan battles and political polarization have led to starkly different education policies at the federal, state, and local levels, not only lowering the quality of education but also deepening educational inequality nationwide.
Amid such a trend, U.S. higher education resources disproportionately favor the wealthy. At the state level, wealthier states are often educational strongholds, and in terms of quality, top universities tend to come with top price tags.
Harvard economist Raj Chetty led a study, based on millions of anonymous tax filings and tuition records, revealing that at 38 colleges in America, including five Ivy League schools (Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale, Penn, and Brown), more students come from the top 1 percent of the income scale than from the entire bottom 60 percent.
The bipartisan neglect of the core issue of educational equity has allowed the resource gap between schools in poor and wealthy areas to keep widening. Data from the U.S. Department of Education shows that public schools in low-income districts receive nearly 1,500 U.S. dollars less per student each year than those in affluent districts.
Meanwhile, minority and immigrant students face significant educational disparities. According to the NCES, Black and Hispanic students consistently have lower graduation and college enrollment rates. Such inequities in educational access limit upward mobility, fueling broader social inequalities and intensifying racial and cultural divides across the country.
Bettina Love, a professor at Teachers College of Columbia University, noted in the journal EducationWeek that the lack of attention to education could suggest the candidates aren't committed to helping K-12 schools and students thrive. "I think it also sends a message that they're not interested in really solving the inequalities and the serious issues facing us," she said.
POLICY POLARIZES
Noting that education was once an issue that hasn't had "a lot of daylight" between the two parties in modern politics, but now has become especially partisan within the last decade, Jennifer Steele, a professor at American University's School of Education, said: "I've never seen education as divisive as it is in this presidential election."
Partisan battles over education are primarily reflected in policy instability. When administrations change, the incoming party frequently reverses the education policies of its predecessor. Education has become a weapon for partisan battles in an increasingly polarized political landscape.
Much of U.S. President Joe Biden's K-12 education strategy has centered on undoing Trump-era restrictions and reinstating protections. Meanwhile, his student loan forgiveness initiatives have faced fierce opposition from Republicans, with seven GOP-led states filing lawsuits claiming that the Department of Education's recent debt relief measures are illegal.
Just two weeks before the election, on Oct. 17, and with early voting already underway in some states, the Biden administration announced an additional 4.5 billion dollars in student debt relief for over 60,000 borrowers, leveraging its administrative resources to appeal to student voters.
As for former President Donald Trump, he has been calling for an end to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and opposing Biden's broader debt cancellation efforts, criticizing them as Democratic campaign tactics and blaming them for the rising federal deficit.
The polarization between the two parties is also evident in their priorities. States governed by Democrats often focus on funding public schools, aiming to raise teacher salaries and improve facilities, while Republican-led states prioritize school choice, supporting charter schools and voucher programs.
Charter schools in the United States are publicly funded, tuition-free schools that are granted greater flexibility in their operations in exchange for increased accountability for performance, while voucher programs refer to government-funded programs that provide families with vouchers to pay for their children's education at private schools, including religious and non-religious institutions, rather than attending public schools.
As Forbes observed in its article, Higher Education Is Now The Most Politically Polarized Institution In America, On Par With The Presidency, "from a talent and economic development perspective, this partisan divide on education will go down as one of the most damaging trends in U.S. history." ■
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