How States Look to Resist ‘Overreach’ by Federal Bureaucrats
Parents from Indiana to South Carolina who expect to have a voice in what their children are taught in public schools find that more difficult, state lawmakers and policy analysts say, because the federal government has overstepped constitutional boundaries and interjected itself in state and local affairs.
Proponents of legislation aimed at reforming the federal grant-making process cite this example to drive home their concerns that state governments have surrendered too much authority to the federal bureaucracy.
“The federal government has set the tone as to what education will look like in America and it’s different from what parents want for their children,” conservative scholar Emmett McGroarty told The Daily Signal, adding:
What parents want is for their children to know the great minds in history [and] literature, and to understand scientific thought and philosophy and math. But this vision has been replaced with a national progressive view of education that is really geared toward producing lower-quality workers, giving children a lower-quality education that puts them two to three years behind the top performing students in other countries.
The idea behind reforms proposed by the American Legislative Exchange Council is that federal bureaucrats shouldn’t be able to control state spending to the point of …read more