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Background and Context

These resources will help students develop a thorough understanding of Education and make connections between historical events, current conversations, and current public policy proposals surrounding the issue. This section includes all of the context and content previously included in Close Up’s public policy chapters.  

 

U.S. Education Policy in Historical Context

How has Education policy changed throughout our history? Learn More >

U.S. Education Policy in Current Context

What is current Education policy? Learn More >

Education: Deliberating Priorities

What, if anything, should governments do to improve the quality of K-12 education in the United States? Learn More >

Current Issue Debates

Current Issue Debates are framed by a central question and followed by historical context, an overview of both sides of the topic, and discussion questions to facilitate deliberation in the classroom.

 

College Affordability and Student Debt

Available for Middle & High School

How, if at all, should the federal government work to make college more affordable and ease student loan debt? Learn More >

Universal Preschool

Available for Middle & High School

Should governments fund universal preschool? Learn More >

Discipline in Schools

Available for Middle & High School

Should schools abolish zero-tolerance policies and other exclusionary discipline practices? Learn More >

School Choice

Available for Middle & High School

Should states enact school choice policies? Learn More >

Videos from Policymakers

Brought to you by ASP HOMEROOM, through a collaboration between Close Up Foundation and A Starting Point, these supplemental videos are an introduction to policy areas that provide an opportunity for students to hear different perspectives directly from lawmakers.

 

Disparities in Education

Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona
April 14, 2021

Civic Engagement in Education

Senator Chris Coons (D-DE)
December 2, 2020

College Affordability

Former Governor and Congressman John Kasich (R-OH)
November 12, 2020

Lesson Plans

These ready-to-use lesson plans can be utilized in conjunction with any of our resources to enhance the quality of student discourse in the classroom. Our supplemental Civic Readiness Guide provides a recommended lesson plan sequence for using our Current Issues resources.

 

Additional & Archived Resources on Education

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What Role Should Parents Have in Public Education?

Post | March 19, 2024

In the years following students’ return to in-person classes after the COVID-19 outbreak, questions about parents’ role in education—and the appropriateness of discussing controversial topics such as sex and gender orientation in the classroom—have come to the forefront of political debate. A bill recently introduced in Congress, the Books Save Lives Act, seeks to answer […]


Recovering from Pandemic Learning Loss

Post | February 22, 2024

On January 31, Harvard and Stanford Universities released the Education Recovery Scorecard, an assessment of student achievement following the COVID-19 pandemic learning loss.1 The report detailed the gains third- through eighth-grade students in 8,000 school districts across the country have made in their math and reading scores.2 The Education Recovery Scorecard results show that there […]


U.S. Foreign Policy Decisions in the Israel-Hamas Conflict: Part 2

Post | November 29, 2023

As part of our ongoing series centered on the Israel-Hamas conflict, this post will review the U.S. foreign policy decisions. Part 1 of the series focused on the effects of the conflict within U.S. borders and the rise of antisemitism and Islamophobia. To complete the series, Part 3 in the coming week will review how […]


Hamas

The Israel-Hamas War

Post | October 18, 2023

The Hamas Attack Launches On the morning of October 7, 2023, the militant Palestinian nationalist group Hamas unleashed an unprecedented terrorist attack against Israel. Over 5,000 rockets launched from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip (one of two semi-autonomous regions of Israel designated for Palestinian residents). These rocket attacks were immediately followed by thousands of Hamas fighters […]


Reversing the “School-to-Prison Pipeline”? Part 3: Examining the Impact of Prison Education

Post | July 1, 2023

In Part 1 of this series, we saw that more severe approaches to school discipline—including “zero-tolerance” policies—have been statistically linked to higher rates of incarceration, especially among Black boys. This is seen as a key contributor to mass incarceration, which Part 2 showed has grown substantially since the final decades of the 20th century. In […]


Reversing the “School-to-Prison Pipeline”? Part 2: The Debate Over Mass Incarceration

Post | June 22, 2023

Should We Decarcerate? Since the start of the War on Drugs, the United States has adopted and enforced policies that have led to mass incarceration, with nearly half of all incarcerations due to drug crimes.1 According to the Prison Policy Initiative, the rate of incarceration in the United States outpaces every other nation on earth, […]


Reversing the “School-to-Prison Pipeline”? Part 1: Defining the School-to-Prison Pipeline

Post | June 14, 2023

What Do People Mean When They Talk About the School-to-Prison Pipeline? For decades, many researchers who study the public education system have discussed the impact of the “school-to-prison pipeline”: escalating punishments, primarily in “high-poverty, high-minority schools,” intended to deter unwanted student behaviors leading to missed class time, a lost sense of belonging within the school, […]


Glasshouse/Getty Images

History and Civics Scores Drop in The Nation’s Report Card

Post | June 2, 2023

At Close Up, building civic proficiency and comprehension is at the heart of everything we do. Learn more about how we support students, teachers, and civic literacy through our programs, professional development, curriculum, and classroom resources. On May 3, the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics released its civics and U.S. history data […]


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