Political Parties Analysis

Education is one of the many public services that individuals take for granted. Education, specifically public education, fulfills scores of the nation’s rudimentary ambitions and has done so since the nation’s establishment. In this paper, I will analyze the history of politics in the United States of America. The analysis will major on the birth, change and impact of the Democratic and Republican parties in the United States. Likewise, the political history of the political parties will incorporate and outline the manifestos of each political party.
Democratic and Republican Party history
The Democratic - Republican Party was founded in the year 1799 and was dissolved in the year 1828. The party leaders included Thomas Jefferson, James
Madison, James Monroe and Andrew Jackson. The dissolution of the Democratic Republican Party in the year 1828 led to the creation of two distinctive parties known as the Democratic Party, which was led by Jackson and was known as the Jacksonians and the National Republican party that was known as the Anti-Jacksonians (Benen, 2010). Afterward, the Republican Party became strongest in the south and weakest in the northeast, while the democrats were strongest in the northeast and west and weaker in the south. The Republican Party campaigned for the principles of republicanism, which were threatened by the monarchical tendencies of the Hamiltonian Party (Donaldson, 2015).
In 1801, the Republican Party rose in power, with the election of Jefferson in 1800, which was followed by the collapse of the already existing federalist government of Hamilton that later disappeared in the year 1815.
In 1828, Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren joined the new Democratic Party. After the second nomination of Jackson for presidency in 1832 under Democratic Party name, the National Republican Party became the opposition. However, the party did favor a higher tariff in order to protect the United States manufactures and public works. Thereafter the National Republican Party was absorbed into the Whig Party, which later collapsed in the 1850s, over the question of whether or not they should allow the expansion of slave trade into the new territories. Subsequently, the modern Republican Party was formed in 1854, in an attempt to counter the expansion of slave trade. The party merged with former Whig party supporters like Abraham Lincoln, who fought for liberty and equality and used active government to modernize the economy (Donaldson,
2015).
The Democratic Party is considered the oldest voter-based political party in the United States and has changed significantly over the last two centuries. In the 19th century, the Democratic Party was perceived to advocate for slavery but at the turn of 20th century, the party switched its position and realigned its ideologies, by supporting organized labor, civil rights of minorities, universal education and progressive reforms for both white and black Americans (Benen, 2010). The party began to advocate for government intervention in the economy, especially in response to the Great Depression of the 1930s, when President Franklin D. Roosevelts legislative program known as the “New Deal”, became an expansive economic recovery program. However, the party opposed the government’s intervention in the private noneconomic issues of citizens (Clay, 2006).
Comparison of the Democratic and Republican Party platform position on education
Education in the United States has always been an important part of its democratic and idiosyncratic culture, as it has always been considered the great equalizer in the United States. The education system in the United States began in an extraordinarily demeaning and unorganized fashion with its earliest settlers, who established single rooms that served as school houses in emerging communities (Sundue, 2009). Ultimately, this rudimentary system gradually evolved into a massive network of schools that includes elementary education, secondary education and post -secondary education, also identified as vocational or technical schools and takes care of more than 71 million students per year (Ravitch, 2010).
The education system in the United States is not a federal system. Traditionally, education issues such as funding and curriculum are the responsibility of state and local governments. The federal government is prohibited by law from imposing any curriculum on states or schools (Ravitch 2010). Nonetheless, federal legislators are becoming increasingly more involved in issues surrounding education and taking a greater interest in this policy area. Their rhetoric on the topic reflects their differing partisan and ideological views over education policy, which shows little sign of dissipating. The Democratic Party and the Republican equally agree that the imminent and continued success of the United States rests in an effectual and efficient education system. Likewise, each political party advocates for education accountability, which they claim is a key and critical to the success of public schools However, the two parties are greatly divided on how to improve the quality of education in the United States and are highly critical of each other’s education policies, as both parties’ platforms on education are divergent (Katz, 2009). The Democratic Party platform on education calls for education equality and supports the tuition free education of every single child in the United States. The party advocates for excellence of education at every single level of the education system, from early learning through post-secondary education, no matter what religion, ethnic group or economic background they come from. The Democratic Party platform advocates for reformed financial aid programs, deductible taxing of college tuition, creation of more teaching jobs, increased spending on education, (principally the salaries of teachers), and for the expansion of education options for low-income youth. The Party also has confidence that the main key to expanding the scope of opportunities is to provide every child with a strong educational foundation. Moreover, introducing debt free-college tuition for students and families, through new investments in higher education (The Democratic Party Platform, 2016).
The Democratic Party platform does not support bureaucracy and ensures that the federal law is served appropriately with high standards as well as common sense. However, they are advocates for judiciously highly crafted core national education standards, which include standardized assessment tests, to measure complex and needed skills that students are required to develop (Wolters, 2008). The Party also supports character education, which they believe is seemingly one the most important aspects of education. Most democratic candidates believe that education is not based on scores from tests but it’s mostly dependent on passing values to the coming generations of the American citizens, which is yet true (Ravitch, 2010).
The Democratic Party does not support opportunity scholarships, (vouchers), because the democrats believe that the federal funding from vouchers should go into public schools, magnet schools and charter schools, not private schools. “Voucher schools are private schools that might or might not be religious in nature. Students could use vouchers to enroll in any private school, whether it was religious or nonsectarian: (Ravitch, 2010)
The Republican Party platform incorporates decentralization principles and thus the party always advocates for equal motivation and development of schools, whether private or public. The party platform favors an education system where government action is undertaken at the state level and at the local level but not at a federal level (Republican Views on Education). However, when NCLB, (No Child Left Behind), was enacted in 2002, by republican President George Bush, it represented a dramatic shift in the role of the federal government in public education. The testing requirement was one of the largest changes to education policy and in in some ways, probably the most controversial, which increased in subsequent years as states complained about inadequate federal funding and many educators questioned the relevance of standardized testing in improving education quality (Kraft & Furlong, 2013).
“A decade of NCLB has demonstrated that large investments in test preparation may raise scores without actually increasing students’ knowledge and skills and that many students who passed reading and math tests nonetheless needed remediation when they entered college” (Ravitch, 2010). The party platform currently rebuffs undue testing and teaching to the test and encourages the need for strong assessments, to serve as a tool so teachers can tailor teaching to meet student needs (Politico Morning Education).
The Republic Party steadfastly supports laws aimed at safeguarding family rights in education, as well as privacy in education. The party also encourages and promotes a spectrum of school-choice enterprises for learning options which include, technical and career education programs, charter schools, open enrollment requests, college lab schools, virtual schools, full-day school hours, single-sex classes and home schooling. The Republican Party postulates for scores of education choices and modernisms such as; solitary gender classes, year around schools and full-day school hours. Correspondingly, the party believes that these school-choice initiatives allow parents to have more control over their children’s education, who they deem ultimately accountable for their children’s education
Additionally, the Republican Party also assets that new models of learning are a prerequisite for the rapidly changing and dynamic economy of the 21st century. In particular, these undercurrents are predominant in technological sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics, (S.T.E.M). Republicans also advocate for an “English First” methodology toward education, believing programs that break up students whose primary language is not English, precludes them from becoming familiar to conventional American classrooms and society, and hence confines their capacity to progress in civilization. Likewise, the Republican Party supposes that a student’s scholastic educational opportunities are contingent on their talent and motivation as a student, and not where they live or their income level (The Republican Party Platform, 2016) (Republic Views).
The Republican Party platform strongly advocates for the reorganization and restructuring of higher education, which incorporates the elimination of Affirmative Action and federal student loans that the party is intensely opposed to. The party firmly believes that federal student support is on an unsustainable track and that the federal government should get out of the student-loan business, chiefly because the party believes that subsidized loans are far too easy to acquire and provide an incentive to educational institutions to constantly increase their tuition and fees. Furthermore, they favor private sector financing of students, to help counter the rising federal government debt from student funding. (Katz, 2009). Most certainly, the political debate surrounding the issue of funding higher education has a number of different elements. However, what is clear is that the rich will always be able to afford to go to college and be able and willing to pay a premium but what about the poor and middle class? (The Republican Platform 2016) (Republican View). The Republican Party also supports increases in access to higher education with distinctive saving accounts for learners.
The party has given priority to programs that lead to increases in access to higher education, mostly for qualified students. Just like democrats, republicans have targeted increasing benefits to students who are taking challenging course programs and these include, students taking science and mathematics are given priority in terms of savings. This is to ensure that most students are encouraged to take challenging courses like sciences to ensure that the country grows its number of creative and innovative entrepreneurs (Diane, 2010). The Republican Party also favors the growth and expansion of technical organizations, community college programs, cyber universities, private training schools, life-long learning, and work-based learning in the private sector, to generate competition for four-year schools and is a beneficial way to not only make meaningful education easier to get, but a way to impel four-year schools to contest these substitutes levels of job readiness and costs (The Republican Party Platform 2016) (Republican
Views).
In closing, the Republican and Democratic parties have distinct viewpoints on education but again both concur that there are changes that need to be effectuated to our current system of education. Democrats lean toward more progressive approaches to education, while Republicans tend to prefer more conservative vicissitudes. Education is one of the countless public services that we take for granted in the United States. As American citizens, we have the right to receive a free public education, no matter our race, cultural background, religion, gender or socioeconomic status, something many countries around the world do not have. I firmly believe that our nations present and future well-being is grounded in our solid investments towards education. However, I believe that the right to education is not only the right to have access to education but likewise the right to receive an education that is acceptable, adaptable and of high-quality. A strong and efficacious quality education is crucial, because it provides individuals with the baseline skills that are needed for survival. It also shrinks poverty, proliferates wages, enhances economic growth, battles illnesses, reduces maternal mortality rates and promotes peace.