Education US: Federal, Local Or Both

I came across this article earlier today and I'm interested in what other people think. Should the public education system in the US be run federally, locally or with inputs from both?

My opinion on the subject: have very well defined national standards that encourage high academic standards with some local input.

I lived in two different states and many different cities/counties in those states. This meant every time I changed a school (which was pretty much every year) that I either a) was ahead of the new curriculum or b) terribly behind.

What has been your experiences with the school system and how do you think it should be run?

I would like to see Education privatized and government money given to families to send their child to a school if their choice. I think anytime you have a public system for anything it will just break down under the demand.

I would support the privatization IF the families were subsidized up to a point. Unfortunately everyone would call these "handouts" and politics would cause this to be de-funded. Then the case would turn into only upper class children being educated.

The honest truth is that I wouldn't be in college right now if it weren't for federal loans and grants. I have a 3.8 GPA and I can't get even the smallest scholarship. I'm perfectly capable of providing value to society and pulling my family out of poverty but with a completely privatized system I wouldn't have that opportunity.

Even though the economics of the issue says that private schools would become cheaper through complete privatization, the simple truth is that there would still be a lot of people that couldn't afford it. At least with the public system everyone is given the same opportunity to get a basic education.

^ this. all else should *** off.

Would be nice.
Cept we'd all just download kung-fu and sex positions and other useless information.

I wasn't asking about privatization.

Even if we made all the schools in the US private, the schools would still have to follow some guidelines and standards for the students academics. If a complete voucher system ever came online (highly doubtful) the taxpayers would want to know what they are funding, i.e. what are the students learning in school?

Should the national government be in charge of setting the standards or should local government be in charge?

I'd say federal because you'd get so many creationist crazies and religious people cutting out what kids need to be learning.

^ this

Though I think instead of having stricter standards, there needs to be more incentive. You don't produce better results by making the tasks more difficult, you increase the incentives.

I'm not an expert on educational philosophy though so I'll leave my opinion at that.

I think there should be minimum national standards. Example: In second grade math you must teach division, multiplication, and fractions/decimals. So that each student has a basic understanding of fundamental ideas and if they change schools they won't be a) playing catch-up or b) falling asleep in class because they are so far ahead.

Maybe an incentive program would work, but I think that is more the responsibility of the parents for the students. Or if talking about rewards for teachers, I'm not sure what they receive now. I think in FL teachers can receive bonuses if their school as a whole gets a higher grade but its not based on individual work.

Plus, I'm tired of politicians screwing up the school boards. An obvious example is Texas but Georgia is having some serious problems too. Whole counties have lost accreditation in Georgia.