Social Welfare in The US

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When considering social welfare in the United States, one can clearly notice that there is a wide range of different policies. According to Howard Jacob Karger and David Stoesz, provided benefits that are intended to meet the essential life needs of individuals (such as active work, revenue, relationships, health care, sustenance, and shelter), (which) are regulated under social welfare policy (2010, p. 3). For the purpose of this paper, we will analyze a specific social welfare policy known as president Obama’s Race to the Top initiative. In general terms, this policy was shaped on four areas of core education reform, which will be discussed later. Even though the main subject is centered on education, this policy clearly has many different focuses. For this reason, we will mainly focus on higher education. This includes the following goals: helping families in the middle class afford college, keeping the cost of college down, building more strength within community colleges, and increasing public participation in government (The White House, n.d.). The most attention will be given to the individual initiatives related to making college more affordable and keeping college costs down. Policies can be quite useful when it comes to providing assistance to others. The social work profession is dedicated towards enabling all types of individuals, groups, and communities to function, contribute and progress in society (The West Scotland Consortium, 2000). In particular, Obama’s Race to the Top initiative helps social workers assist students in achieving their higher education goals. This includes making the act of attending college a more achievable dream for those who are interested in doing so; with this policy’s focus on higher ed... ... middle of paper ... ...he United States. With funding for this policy, there came a desire to prevent student loan interest rates, for college students, from increasing further. This goal is in the favor of college students who are, working towards, or who are hoping to work towards, an affordable degree. However, feedback from teachers throughout the country suggest that the aims of the policy itself are not effectively resulting in higher test scores and are instead causing greater problems within schools. With all of this being addressed, one could determine that the total effectiveness of Obama’s Race to the Top reform is limited in its successfulness on improving the United States education system. Despite this, future policies should continue to be implemented in an active attempt towards making necessary adjustments to the problems centered around the United States education system.

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