Introduction to Current Issues in Social Policy: Education, Employment, and Family

Focusing on education, employment, and family, this final chapter continues the discussion of current issues in U.S. social policy.

Though public education is largely controlled at the state and local level, national policy affects curriculum content, teaching standards, quality of school facilities, and student educational opportunities. The role of the federal government in education is itself among the most contentious current social policy issues.

All children in the United States have a legal right to a kindergarten through twelfth-grade education. However, social policy affects each student's educational opportunities. Social policies since the 1950s have sought to address the ills of racial and socioeconomic segregation and inequality of school facilities. Bussing, controversial school voucher and charter school programs, affirmative action, and federal education initiatives seek to remedy these lingering problems. Some parents, looking for an alternative solution, lobbied for the opportunity to school children at home. Government regulation of academic standards also reaches homeschooled students. Like corporate-sponsored charter schools and school voucher programs, homeschooling remains a divisive educational issue. Some claim that such programs hurt public schools, taking away needed resources and talented students. Others claim that students and parents have the right to abandon continually failing public schools and secure the best educational opportunities possible.

Also included in this chapter are articles discussing the recent federal education initiative No Child Left Behind and social programs providing college funding through federal student loans and state-sponsored scholarships. An article on abstinence-only education provides a brief foray into the present-day intersection of moral issues and U.S. social policy. This topic was chosen specifically because it potentially affects a substantial portion of U.S. public school students—a case in point of how religion, morality, and politics influence even existing social policy and programs—even if only for a limited time.

This chapter also contains articles on affirmative action and anti-discrimination in the workplace. Highlighted are issues of employee safety and employment security. While unemployment benefits are available to some in the United States, a more comprehensive system of labor regulation and unemployment insurance exists in Canada and much of Europe. Protections on employment are largely a matter of individual state policies in the United States, leaving a diverse legal landscape. From employment "at-will" granting employers broad rights to hire and fire employees, to "just cause termination" that somewhat restricts an employer's ability to fire workers, job security and employment protections vary by location. National social policy has produced some employment protections. Employment discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender, or physical handicap is broadly prohibited by federal law. Highlighted here are federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination based on disabilities, and preventing retaliatory actions against employees that disclose illegal actions of corporations. While the United States does not provide nationalized healthcare, varying workers' compensation insurance schemes cover on-the-job injuries and promote worker safety.