Education Policy in the United States

This survey course will introduce you to the central issues in K-12 education policy. We will first consider the normative dimensions of education policymaking: What are the substantive and distributional goals of K-12 public education? What does, and should, equality of educational opportunity mean in theory and practice? After introducing a framework for combining values and evidence, we will consider the empirical evidence on a range of policy levers, including policies that address school accountability, teacher quality, school choice, and curricula.