Analyze The American Education Policy

After the popularization of basic education, how to improve the quality of basic education has become a problem that troubled education policy makers and educators. As a typical education decentralization country, the traditional education management of the United States of America is something drifts, and that causes the standards in education and teaching are different from states to states. Together with the different efforts the state share in education makes the education quality of the U.S. varies a lot. To solve this problem, the United States began the reform to strengthen educational standards and competence to govern education. On January 8,2002, U.S. President George W. Bush signed the "No Child Left Behind Law" (No Child Left Behind, NCLB) into law, that marked the beginning of a new round of education reform. The enactment of this bill provides a legal form for educational reform:school must improve the quality of education, improve teaching methods, provide more freedom for states and local educational agencies, and provide parents with more choices. The Act rules that all states must establish measurable teaching standards and track student achievement through state examination; teachers, principals, schools and school districts must be responsible to improve student achievement. To promote the smooth implementation of NCLB, the federal government increased funding for education efforts, providing basic education funding for the states at the same time continue to strengthen the special funds, for example the federal government provide financial supports for teacher training and research of new teaching methods. The other side of the Pacific Ocean, nearly at the same time as the NCLB enactment, China has also started a new round of curriculum reform. The main purpose of the new curriculum reform is to build an open basic education system, full of vitality of socialism with Chinese characteristics, promotes the full development of students, using an integrated curriculum to develop students'life-long learning ability, the innovative ability and the ability to explore, and enables students to become the true masters of learning. At the same time reforming the education management mode, changes the too much emphasis on centralized management and control of the past, and establish national-local-school three levels curriculum management policies. Comparing the different directions of educational reform processes in the same era will help us fully understand the problems encountered in the reform and seek a positive resolution strategy.