Local Control

Local control is one of those ideas that sound so good.

"Parents know what their children need to learn."

"Community standards can only be upheld by community-based education."

You get the idea. Here in the American West, where I live, the whole thing approaches a religion. The very idea that some faceless bureaucrat in the far-away state capitol (or worse, God wot, in the Federal Government) should decide what our local kids need to learn can drive otherwise reasonable people into an absolute tiz.

Like so many things these days, the concept is based in a vain attempt to return to a world that never was. A tiny portion of the population under the age of 50 will die in the town in which they were born. A slightly larger portion of the over-50's will, but the rate (it differs, based on your source) still doesn't approach significance. Our children and grand children will have to be part of the world marketplace.

Despite the best efforts of the neo-Luddites who want the United States to retain the economic structure that served well a century ago, things have changed. Eventually, probably when we lead the world in nothing positive, we will be forced to allow workers to follow jobs, both leaving and entering the country with minimal formality and without the various penalties that now apply.

We need, as a nation, to take education seriously. The "make up your own test" folderol at the heart of No Child Gets Ahead will not do it. Neither will starving the schools of resources while chanting the mantra: "You can't get a good education by throwing money at the problem."

So why is it, if money can't buy a decent education, that the average child of the ruling class will complete college with a bill for private, quality education right around a million dollars?

And to totally change the subject, why is it that a recipient of such a privilege, in order to gain and hold the highest elected office in the United States feels it necessary to speak as if the fifth grade had been the pinnacle of his educational career?