1) In Feds In The Classroom: How Big Government Corrupts, Cripples, and Compromises American Education, you discuss your concerns about the Federal government and their involvement in local schools. What are your TOP TEN concerns if you will?

As the title of my book makes clear, I think there are very serious problems with federal involvement in education. I don't, though, have ten discreet concerns. Instead, I see a few very major and fundamental problems with federal involvement in schooling:

1. Federal control completes the public schooling monopoly: The biggest problem with public education right now is that it's a government monopoly that all taxpayers have to support whether they like it or not. At least, though, parents currently have a modicum of choice if they can move to better districts or better functioning states. Give the federal government control over schooling, though, and even this minor choice will be eradicated. The monopoly will become absolute because people won't even be able to move to another state to escape unsatisfactory public schools.
   
2. Federal control is unconstitutional: The Constitution gives the federal government only specific, enumerated powers, and making education policy is not among them. And, no, the "general welfare" clause does not change that, as James Madison himself made clear in the Federalist Papers. Unfortunately, many people simply ignore the Constitution if they think it might keep Washington from doing something they really want done. But they should beware: Once the supreme law of the land is ignored we no longer have any protection from government power. It's a lesson that the National Education Association – which for decades lobbied for increasing federal involvement in education – ought to have learned from the No Child Left Behind Act, which they hate for its standards and accountability measures.
   
3. Federal education policy inevitably works for politicians and special interests, not children: As forty-plus years of Washington meddling in elementary and secondary education has proven, federal education programs are ultimately used for the benefit of politicians and the people employed in public schooling, not parents and children. Almost without fail policymakers have spun as positive the outcomes of failed education policies they supported; pushed money to programs based largely on the lobbying of groups employed by them; and ignored the fact that almost all federal efforts have failed the children they were supposed to serve. Of course, this has happened regularly at the state and local levels as well, but no level of government is more distant – and therefore less responsive – to individual families and communities than the feds.
   
4. Perpetual political warfare: Public school systems, which all people must support but only the most politically powerful can control, inevitably force people into unnecessary political combat. Whether over disputed books in school libraries, sex education, dress codes, Intelligent Design, or myriad other issues, public schooling forces diverse people into political battles to determine whose values will be taught in the schools everyone has to support. Again, though, it is currently at least possible to avoid some of these controversies by moving to a district or state that isn't divided over them. Let the federal government control all schools, however, and everyone will be forced into combat over everything from "fuzzy math" to Intelligent Design.

2) What prompted you to write this book?

The genesis of this book is a policy analysis I wrote in which I tried to identify where, exactly, all the money that Washington spends on education ends up going. In writing the report I looked mainly at where federal money currently goes, but also tried to trace the development of federal education activity through the years and identify exactly what the feds have thought they should be doing in our schools. I was fortunate that that report eventually fell into the hands of an editor at Rowman and Littlefield, who proposed that I expand it into a book exploring more of the history of public education and federal involvement therein, the role of the federal courts, and offering guidance about how best to improve American education.

3) What is the "conventional wisdom" surrounding federal involvement in education.?

Most people, it seems, just assume that the federal government should be involved in American education. There appears to be no agreement, however, about what the feds should do once there. Should they just send money to poor districts? Establish curricular standards? Run programs focusing on specific problems? Fund and disseminate research? Heck, even the U.S. Department of Education can't settle on a mission, saying that the federal role is to provide an educational "emergency response system" while simultaneously declaring that Washington's mission is "promote educational excellence throughout the Nation." Of course, such hopeless ambiguity should come as no surprise, because Washington cut loose from its moorings as soon as it ignored the Constitution. Without the supreme law of the land to guide them, federal politicians have simply given the country whatever has seemed most politically advantageous.

4) IN your mind, is there too much federal legislation going on in terms of the schools?

Almost any federal legislation is too much because the Constitution gives Washington no authority over American education. That said, the feds do have constitutional authority over the District of Columbia and military installations, as well as a responsibility to ensure that state and local governments do not discriminate in their provision of public education. So legislation related to those three concerns is fine, but everything else is too much.

5) Does the average American citizen have any real idea as to the complexities of the local school system?

I would guess the average American doesn't, though no doubt what people know depends somewhat on where they live. Some states still have small districts where citizens can be actively involved in district governance. Others have countywide districts, or just big districts, that are far too large for most people to get intimately involved in. In most places, though, it is likely that the vast majority of people have little idea about the intricacies of district governance, including the details of collective bargaining agreements, construction contracts, state and federal mandates, and sundry other bureaucratic and regulatory details.

6) Are schools being made dependent on federal funding,

Yes and no. While in an absolute sense Washington sends a lot of money to schools, depending on how you calculate it federal spending accounts for only around 8.5 percent to 11 percent of total elementary and secondary funding. Most districts and schools could probably function pretty normally without that. Politically, though, politicians are dependent on federal money. At least, that is, few could ever turn it down, because no matter what percentage of total spending the federal portion might be, it is very hard for state and local politicians to tell voters they're turning away hundreds-of-millions – even billions – of federal dollars that came from those taxpayers to begin with.

7) Are they way too many regulations regarding education, teacher certification and the like?

There sure are, but such is the nature of government "accountability." Since customers can't hold public schools and their employees accountable simply by taking their money and leaving bad schools behind – in other words, because there is no bottom-up accountability – there must be top-down rules and regulations. Unfortunately, this is incredibly inefficient and ultimately futile, forcing people to jump through hoops instead of being judged on performance, and offering lots of bureaucratic rules and regulations for bad actors to hide behind.

8) Is there any realjudicial oversight in terms of education? Or is it only when a parent brings a lawsuit that the courts get involved?

There should be no active oversight of education by the federal judiciary, and for the most part there isn't. Actively governing school districts simply is not the role of the federal courts. Unfortunately, we had to learn this the hard way in the 1960s and 1970s when many federal judges for all intents and purposes seized control of school districts with forced integration plans. Such judicial control often did much more harm than good, angering people of all races who were bused miles from their nearest school in the name of integration while doing very little to improve educational outcomes.

9) Let's face it….the world is a more complex place today than in the 1950's, 1960's and 1970-'s and so forth. Do you need so much federal involvement and can you try to make a cost-benefit analysis?

At no time in our history has there been a need for federal involvement in education because the federal government could never make effective education policy for a nation as diverse and widespread as ours. Our representatives in D.C. simply could never know even a tiny fraction of what they'd need to about the needs of unique communities and children across the nation, nor could federal politics, with all its influence-peddling, log-rolling, and compromise, ever be expected to produce educationally coherent and effective policies. And as the world becomes more complex it becomes even harder for one or a handful of people to understand the needs of society and administer an effective education system.

As far as a cost-benefit analysis goes, I conducted a fairly simple one in the book, comparing percentage changes in federal education spending to changes in scores on National Assessment of Educational Progress math and reading exams. What I found was that we've had huge increases in federal spending over the decades but no commensurate improvements on NAEP. And, no, the problem is not that children are worse off today than they were in the year I started my analysis. When one looks at measures of material well-being, health, and family characteristics, kids are better off today than they were in the 1970s.

10) In terms of the constitution- what did our founding fathers have to say about who should control the schools? What is the current constitutional perspective?

[I think I hit this one in previous questions.]

10) What question have I neglected to ask ?

Q: If not federal control, what? State and local control has often been disastrous, so isn't it just as bad – or worse – to have no federal oversight and standards?

A: It is true that state and local control of public schooling has often been disastrous, and simply eliminating the federal presence in education will do little to transform our sickly public schooling system. We will still, after all, have educational monopolies, just concentrated at the state and local levels rather than Washington. Of course, as mentioned, at least with state and local control people unhappy with their schools could potentially move to places where the schools are better. In addition, states and districts could continue to serve as laboratories for new educational ideas without putting the entire nation at risk.

Still, if we want to really make American education work, the system has to be turned on its head. We have to take power away from politicians and bureaucrats and give it to parents through school choice, letting them take their children – and the money attached to them – out of schools that are unsatisfactory and put them into schools that work. Only then will parents and children cease to be at the mercy of politicians and bureaucrats, and schools be forced to compete – and truly improve – to stay in business. Only then – when accountability comes from the bottom-up instead of from the top-down – will we see American schooling begin to provide the best possible education for everyone.

Published June 28, 2007