Taking a stand on education
July 3, 2007| By Nathaniel Ward
Emboldened by their victory over the misguided immigration proposal last week, conservatives in Congress are setting their sights on another ill-advised law, Heritage’s Rob Bluey reports. “Conservatives [have] begun to speak out loud against Washington’s expanded role over local schools,” he explains.
No Child Left Behind, the big-government education program designed in part by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), is up for renewal this year. This program dramatically increased federal spending on education and imposed new bureaucratic controls on local schools.
But conservatives recognize NCLB’s flaws, and they have introduced a common-sense alternative, the A-PLUS Act, which would restore local control of education. “Restoring state control of state testing policies,” Heritage’s Eugene Hickok and Matthew Ladner of the Goldwater Institute argue in a new analysis, “could protect the academic transparency that is needed to hold public schools accountable for performance to parents, taxpayers, and policymakers.”
Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.