Educational Excellence Through Local Control

Education in America has been severely declining for decades compared to other nations. At the same time, budgets and bureaucracy have grown dramatically. Many of the increases in school spending have not reached the classroom.

This trend in American education has followed the shift from local control to bureaucratic control. I would like to see Idaho reverse this trend and set an example for the nation. I believe the solution is to give control back to the people it belongs to.

If there are 150 educational methods, public schools are limited to five. Considering the numerous teaching styles, learning styles, personality types, special needs, and the variety of interests, forcing all children into a narrow mold is stifling the next generation of American ingenuity.

“No Child Left Behind” is one example of bureaucratic intrusions into local schools. Top-down control of education makes it more difficult for bright new ideas to spread. Opting out of the nationally failing one-size-fits-all model would allow innovative options to flourish in Idaho.

State and federal bureaucrats are not only expensive, but they have to continually come up with new regulations since their previous attempts failed to produce better results. Many of their dictates are counterproductive while consuming resources.

Bureaucrats also drive up the cost of education by requiring schools to take on more and more parental responsibilities. These responsibilities all cost money and government institutions can never do anything as efficiently or effectively as families can.

I don't think any of us want institutions to replace the family, so at some point we have to decide how many of these responsibilities we really want schools to have. Rather than paying far-away bureaucrats to decide, I think that the parents of each community should make these decisions for their children.