Smith: On education, demand local control

photo Robin Smith

Many declare little difference exists between policies of the right and left. Yet taking time to examine a key contrast in the area of educational policy quickly dispels this notion.

In April, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., worked with the members of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee to pass the Every Child Achieves Act, which would modify the No Child Left Behind law. At its most basic, the Achieve Act gives the decision-making power over improving student achievement to local education districts and states.

The rewritten NCLB affects Tennessee and other states in three major ways.

First, it affirms that states decide what academic standards they will adopt, without interference from Washington. The federal government may not mandate or incentivize states to adopt or maintain any particular set of standards, including Common Core.

Second, the revised law ends the federal test-based accountability system of No Child Left Behind, restoring to states the responsibility for determining how to use federally required tests for accountability purposes.

And third, it updates and strengthens charter schools by combining two existing plans into one comprehensive Charter Schools Program.

Since 2007, NCLB has been "expired" legislation, yet the dysfunction of D.C. politics has hindered recrafting a law rife with heavy-handed federal mandates. After hearing the cries from teachers, parents and local school districts, the logical action would have been to address the law. But the approach of the Obama Administration has been to offer "waivers" through the U.S. Department of Education to circumvent NCLB rather than fix it.

As Tennessee's former governor and U.S. Secretary of Education, Alexander knows the best decisions about a child's education are made by those who are closest to that child: parents and teachers. The Achieve Act will empower both.

Contrast that with Education Secretary Arne Duncan's proposal last Tuesday for public boarding schools.

In remarks at the National Summit on Youth Violence Prevention in Crystal City, Va., Duncan declared that "schools should be more than a place for learning," instead resembling "community centers."

"Our schools should be open 12, 13, 14 hours a day with a wide variety of after-school programming," he said.

In identifying a subset of students who need parenting, Duncan noted, "There's just certain kids we should have 24/7 to really create a safe environment and give them a chance to be successful."

So a child at a round-the-clock public school is no longer merely a student, but a ward of the state under the banner of public education?

Where did such a concept originate? As Chicago Public Schools chief, Duncan discussed his "nascent" plan to the Chicago Tribune in 2008 about "students hampered by dysfunctional homes and other obstacles outside school."

Public education is a beneficial civic good. However, at no time should an agency of government so overstep its bounds as to replace the home as the central social mechanism in a child's life.

If ever there's a time to demand local control of the public education system, it's now. Federal power over education is being placed in the hands of collectivists who use institutional authority to replace social institutions like family, the home, church, and the community.

It's time to ask ourselves who knows best for our children: parents and teachers, or bureaucrats?

Robin Smith is a former chairwoman of the Tennessee Republican Party and owner of Rivers Edge Alliance.

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