Since 1965, the federal government has spent over $2 trillion on K-12 education. Last year alone, we spent $150 billion in grants and loans for higher education. As the federal role in education has grown we have seen no discernible impact on student performance. Test scores are stagnant, graduation rates are still abysmal, and college drop-out rates are unacceptably high. We need to restore state and local control in education and ultimately put parents back in charge of their child’s education.
In the decades since Lyndon Johnson’s “Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965″ was passed, federal per-pupil spending has nearly tripled. We have reauthorized the law 8 times, most recently calling it “No Child Left Behind.” This utopian moniker further marched the federal government into local schools by federally micromanaging annual student assessments and teacher credentialing.
Tim Murphy supports this failed approach to education policy, calling No Child Left Behind “a big step forward in bringing accountability to our nation’s schools.” I disagree. During my time at the Heritage Foundation, I wrote extensively regarding the need to limit the federal role in education and return decision-making to state and local lawmakers — and ultimately to parents.
The federal role in education needs to ratcheted down. I support efforts to restore state and local control through legislation such as the “Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success Act (A-PLUS)” introduced by Sens. DeMint and Cornyn. If a parent has a concern with their child’s education, they should be appealing to local school boards and local officials — not Washington politicians and bureaucrats.
Ultimately, however, the only way to fix education is to give all parents a choice in their child’s education. The federal government needs to get out of the way so that state and local governments can allow children to choose the school that best fits their individual needs. Rather than allowing a child to be trapped in a failing, violent school because of his or her zip code, elected officials should give students more control over their own education dollars.
