Here's a Way to Tinker with NCLB: Eliminate the Department of Education

Margaret Spellings got some air time yesterday with the announcement that the Bush administration would use some of its executive power to tinker with the No Child Left Behind Law specifically addressing some graduation issues. George Miller, Democrat from California, who had already tried to leave teachers' unions behind with suggested revisions of the law that included items such as merit pay chimed in with his two cents that tinkering was not enough for a law that needed a significant overhaul. In the end, those most impacted by NCLB, teachers and students, are the ones left throwing their hands in the air once again in the face of the ineptitude of the federal government and its ongoing to desire to infringe on the decision making of local schools.

In my past fantasies where I actually thought that proclaimed conservatives would actually promote conservative ideals, I wondered whether a Bush White House would actually take steps to limit the scope of the Department of Education. This was clearly pure fantasy as Bush, demonstrating maybe one of the worst political attributes in our elected leadership, became a conservative mouthpiece with a big government agenda. See free market zealots granting enormous government subsidies to J.P. Morgan as it "bought out" Bear Sterns for the icing on the cake. Nonetheless, Bush never limited the scope of the Department of Education and in fact, allowed a department never conceived in the Constitution to become even more of an undermining force to states' powers across the nation.

I believe firmly that discourse around the elimination of the Department of Education is one that is necessary for the political left. The original Elementary and Secondary Education Act served a moral necessity. There were too many states entrenched in racist ideals incapable of making the necessary decisions to meet the needs of the disenfranchised for the federal government to just sit back idly and watch the madness play out. That heavy-handedness served a purpose, but as is often the case, the federal government did not know when to say when. The end result now is that we have far too many states dependent on federal Title 1 dollars. States, especially in the West, have allowed public ballot measures to disintegrate their capacity to adequately fund public education forcing inextricable Title 1 welfare dependence.

Teachers and students want to know when the testing mania will end and when politicians will stand up for balanced curriculum and professional decision making. The answer to that question may have to be when we get the feds off our back and actually get a state-based tax structure that is adequate and self-sufficient. Now that's a difficult battle!