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This course will explore the federal government’s role in K-12 education policy. While the course will address the historic roots of the federal government’s role, it will focus largely on the federal government’s rapidly evolving policy role in education over the past two decades. During this period, on global measures of education, U.S. performance has stagnated while other countries’ results trend up, and educational achievement gaps continue to reflect a system that is riddled with inequity. Technology is playing a greater role in students’ learning out of school – and indeed in all facets of Americans’ personal and professional lives – but educators are struggling to use technology effectively in schools. Teachers unions are engaged in existential identity crises, while over one million new teachers will enter the profession in the coming decade. And the hyper-partisan conflicts that we see across the country come home to roost in the context of education policy as fights over which level of government is in charge of what. In this course, students will explore many of these issues, including: the historic roots of the federal role in education within the context of the Civil Rights movement; the structure of the U.S. educational system; school accountability and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)’s evolution over time; academic standards and assessments; school turnaround and choice; and educator effectiveness and teacher policy.