Teacher Quality and National Standards

Running Head: TEACHER QUALITY AND NATIONAL STNDARDS 1
Teacher Quality and National Standards
Name
Institution

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Introduction
A policy is a course or principle of action that is adopted by an individual, organization
or a government. Policies are developed in work places and organization to serve in a number of
ways. Some of the key reasons as to why organizations develop policies are as follows. First,
policies are developed to form a set of expectations that an organization or government has on its
employees (VandenBos, Hogan & Kazak, 2017). It stipulates not only the behavior of the
employees but also their code of conduct and performance. The set policies are also aimed at
keeping the management of the organization and governments accountable for their actions. In
order to achieve this objective, the policies outline the expected conduct of the managers of the
organizations or government agencies in terms of transparency and leadership.
The policy ensures that the managers are in a position to provide effective leadership to
the rest of the team members (Sanders, Phillips & Vanreusel, 2014). Furthermore policies are
formulates to ensure that entities comply with the law in their operations. In this case, the entity
might just adopt a legal policy set by the nation or develop their own policies to inline with the
requirements of the law. Additionally, the most common reason as to why entities and
governments use policies is to defend themselves against employee claims. Organizations come
up with employee remuneration policies, grievance policies, fair work policies, etc, to aid the
organization defend itself against legal proceedings against the entity or agency launched by an
employee. The policies should also work as guidelines for employees and the clients of the
organization know where they should turn to when in need of help. Since all the policies always

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have a point of contact which is clear and concise, the employees should find it easy to know
where to go when in need of help.
Education policies are government principals revolving around the sphere of education
and comprises of rules and laws that govern all the education systems’ operations. Education
comes in different forms and the government had to develop polices to cover all the levels of
educations beginning with kindergarten up to universities and colleges (Rubin & Hearn, 2018). It
is therefore vital for the policy makers to consult with the stakeholders in education during the
process of educational policy formulation. Some of the interest groups in education include the
teachers unions, Parents and Teachers Associations, School Board Associations and more
importantly the State Department of Education. Furthermore, the policy makers should also lies
with the legislature arm of the government and the Legal staff during the policy making duration.
Since educational policies, cove all the educational levels in the country, the use different policy
tools to meet the demands of each of the levels of education in the country (Hentschke, 2018).
Different scholars have written a number of papers and journals on educational policies. In
Australia, the government is considering a number of education policy areas starting from
policies aimed at making early childhood education mere affordable to issuing free text books to
first year university students. This work analyses some of the literature on education policies and
identifies gaps in the existing blind spot and gaps in the existing educational policy and the
process of formulation of education policy.
Literature review

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A number of scholars have written about educational policies taking different approached
in efforts to solve different problems revolving around educational policies. According to
Schulte (2018), the discrepancy that exists between education professional and the government is
always well known. In a number of cases, countries find themselves torn in between educational
policies on one side and the educational practices on the other side. The discrepancy always
comes in when the policies contradict the well cultivated educational practices that have been in
the system for a prolonged duration. In such instances, it is always in the view of the
professionals in the education sector that the implementations of the policies would disrupt the
normal functioning of the education system (Schulte, 2018). While the policies look at the
political side of the education system, the practitioners in the education systems often look at the
practicability of the policies and in most cases, there is always a huge variance between the two.
When it comes to the implementation of curriculum reviews, teachers tend to politicize the
process in the cause of implementation. This situation often leaves the middle level policy
makers at cross roads between the desires of the government and the wants of the teachers who
are the implementers of the policies (Schulte, 2018). The difference is always bigger in the cases
of children special need. Ristovska et al. (2017) note that educational policies for children
suffering from intellectual disability are often inconsistent with the practical implementation.
Such variances make the policies less effective and in most cases, the implementers of the
policies who are mostly teachers prefer to use more applicable methods hence resulting into a
dispute between the policies put in place and the real practice.