In short, we need a dramatic new approach to the federal role in eduation.

The current K-12 system involves hundreds of separate federal education programs.  Most of these programs require schools and school districts to apply for individual grants for each program.  If the schools receive a grant, they must then document how the money is spent with mounds of paperwork that will prove the schools spent each little pot of money in precisely the manner required by federal law.  

Frequently, the United States Department of Education sends in auditors to make sure school districts have followed the rules.  This process is a curious spectacle.  A large group of people, all ostensibly in the business of making sure our children learn, spend an excessive amount of time micro-managing our school districts with thousands of pages of rules and regulations.  Process is king.  This group of people never once inquires as to whether or not the children in school have learned anything.  Results do not matter.  The federal government offers no incentive whatsoever for schools to improve.

The smaller or poorer the school district, the worse this situation becomes.  Many schools in desperate need of financial assistance don’t get it because they don’t have the resources to have personnel spending time filling out grant requests.  In some cases, the amount of money offered barely covers the cost of the process required to receive the funds.

This whole mess started with the best of intentions.  Education is a matter of national priority and the federal government should help improve the quality of K-12 education.  The federal government can be especially important in ensuring that certain groups of children do not get left behind.

In the past, for example, minorities and children with disabilities were routinely denied access to a decent education until the federal government stepped in to help.  The federal government can also help by providing funds for schools with high poverty rates when these schools fall victim to inadequate state and local funding schemes such as the property tax.  Unfortunately, these good intentions of ensuring all of America’s children have access to education simply ran amok as dozens and dozens of more programs got piled on to the K-12 system until federal paperwork threatened to bury our local schools.

We must balance the best of both worlds.  Local control must be the cornerstone of federal education policy, with federal funding there to assist these local efforts, rather than sink them in a sea of red tape.  School districts differ from one area to another.  Maybe one desperately needs more money for teacher training, while another needs more teachers.  Federal rules must allow for this flexibility.

That is why I have written legislation to allow for this flexibility.  My bill, the Empowering Local Schools Act, would condense hundreds of existing programs into six broad pools of money.  These pools would emphasize assisting schools with high rates of poverty, non-English speaking students, innovation, teacher preparation, and public school choice.  Each pot of money distributes funds to schools based on a variety of factors, but the goal is the same for each pot– increased flexibility for local schools in deciding how to best educate our kids.  My bill would send these funds directly to the school districts and place the greatest emphasis on helping the poorest schools.

This proposal would also focus on results, not process.  I would allow each state to determine its own method of measuring results and track how each school does in terms of improving student achievement based on that measurement.  If a school doesn’t improve, we don’t send in a team of auditors to review process.  Instead, a team of state, federal and local officials would determine why the school isn’t improving and establish a plan to fix the problem.

This proposal is a comprehensive new approach to the federal role in education.  It would be the most dramatic change to our K-12 education system since the advent of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, but it is a much-needed reform if our children are to be prepared for the 21st century.

We all know that the strength of our schools depends first and foremost on the strength of the local communities, teachers, school board members, parents and principals.  They are the people closest to the children, and they have the greatest impact on the quality of education the children receive.  Federal K-12 education policy must recognize this reality and embrace local control as its guiding principle.