How About Just Scrapping No Child Left Behind!?

An article in the St. Joseph News Press (via Combest) discusses Rep. Sam Graves’ (R-MO) move to make No Child Left Behind more flexible for the states to implement:

Congress should cede more accountability for student academic progress to local school districts, teachers and parents, U.S. Rep. Sam Graves told educators Wednesday. In addition, the Northwest Missouri congressman said No Child Left Behind legislation should look to growth-based models as more fair and accurate ways to track grade-level proficiencies.

We need to be a little bit less rigid with the expectations, Mr. Graves, a Tarkio Republican, said.

Better yet, how about removing the federal government from its role in education altogether. No Child Left Behind and other federal interjections into school has not helped improve schools one bit. In fact, they have probably made schools worse-off, because they had to meet federal regulations to receive federal money. Only through harnessing the distributed knowledge of local educators who know the tendencies of their own school districts, rather than a burdensome federal bureaucracy that is stuck in DC, can a school district reach its potential.