The Death of Federalism, Part 4234

It used to be that education was among the most locally decided aspects of a community's social structure. With the rise of public education, governance began passing to larger and less local bodies: school boards, counties, and the states. It also used to be that some people objected to this centralization, and were particularly hostile to moving any power to the federal level (remember when they used to talk about abolishing the Department of Education?). Well that's all gone. Now the federal government will begin testing teachers to ensure they meet the standards of what we can now call the "American public educator."

The idea that a federal program can ensure the quality of teaching at the level of individual schools is absolutely inane. If there is one area where different communities require different solutions, it must be public education. I can live with the level of state control, but this federalization seems like a dead end. There's got to be a better way.