I've written a couple times recently about the Department's lack of clarity about its view of the proper role for the feds in K-12 education. There were two parts to my argument essentially: that Secretary Duncan's general rule that Washington doesn't know best has come into conflict with several things his Department has done, and that properly defining Uncle Sam's role in K-12 is terribly difficult.
Almost everyone who has contacted me about these posts has addressed the first point. I actually thought the second would generate more comments because I was suggesting that the administration??wasn't unique in its??cognitive dissonance and implying that they could get out of this sticky web by simply dropping the "states and districts are always right" talking point. Doing so would then allow the Department to pursue unfettered the things it cares about--dealing with failing schools, performance pay, national standards, etc.
Neal McCluskey over at Cato, however, picked up the gauntlet on this second point. He believes he does have a "comprehensive, water-tight" (my words) argument for what the feds should and should not do. In short, his answer is: Nothing. The US Constitution doesn't allow any federal meddling in schools.
Though this is a defensible argument (and one made by others before him), I neither agree with it nor consider it water-tight because this would presumably require immediately getting rid of IDEA, TItle I, IES, NAEP, and much more. He might argue that doing so is necessary and proper because it's the only path that squares with our founding document, but policy-wise it is certainly implausible any time soon (perhaps I should've used a word other than "water-tight" to describe what I was getting at).
McCluskey's general argument about the limits inherent in enumerated powers raises many provocative questions. Should we have a NASA? Was the Louisiana Purchase unconstitutional? Should we bring to an end the Federal Reserve and Social Security? Is the federal voucher program in DC unconstitutional? I'm not assuming his answers to any of these questions, just noting the potential implications of his starting point.
For those who believe that it's within the federal government's authority to do something in the realm of schools, here's a question that I wrestle with. If we move to a "tight-loose" formulation for NCLB/ESEA and develop national standards and assessments but then leave just about everything else up to states and districts, what do we do when a state participates in the agreed-upon national standards and assessments and takes lots of federal funds but fails to close the achievement gap or address persistently failing schools?