Let the States Decide

The staff's good intentions are outdated. Federal education reform is an idea whose time has gone. Wary of the colossal failures of federal programs such as curriculum-tied grants, goals 2000 and outcome-based education schemes, states are renovating their own educational apparatuses.

Since the early 1980s, when the Department of Education was established, the government has poured billions into elementary and secondary education to little effect. State governments now have surpluses, too. Let them decide how much to spend--and more importantly, where to spend--on education.

The staff believes that Massachusetts's teacher testing program is suspect because of "the secrecy surrounding its methodology." That, and the fact that state officials have had the nerve to call dumb teachers "dumb." Fittingly, the staff seems to think that the solution to this is a kindly bureaucrat in shining armor who should come from the federal government, known, of course, for its humanness, its sunshine and its clarity.

What Massachusetts's testing shows is that many teachers aren't qualified to teach. That doesn't bode well for the teachers' unions, but the state deserves credit for telling the truth.

President Clinton's plan embraces the rhetoric of re-inventing government. What it re-invents, however, is excessive federal control over a vital issue that the national authority bungled a long time ago.