“The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works.” President Obama, Inauguration Speech, January 2009 Federal involvement in local education, while certainly controversial, is not new. ...

School desegregation was the most powerful and most effective tool ever implemented by the federal government to close the achievement gap.  Where correctly carried out, it benefitted students of all races, lowered residential segregation, and pushed...

The United States government spends more on, and expects more from, public primary and secondary schools than any other industrialized country does.  While much of Western Europe provides citizens with a comprehensive set of social services, the...

It’s August in Miami, 2005.  I’ve been teaching for a week or two and I’m lying on the tile floor of my dark apartment at 3:00 am on Sunday night.  I’ve been sleeping four hours a night and I usually wake up and get in the shower every hour in a...

“The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works.” –     President Barack Obama Inauguration Speech, January 2009 The 2001 reauthorization of ESEA requires each state to develop and...