Can We Identify a Principled, Limited Federal Edu-Role?
by Frederick M. Hess • Dec 12, 2011 at 9:01 am
Cross-posted from Education Week
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ShareThe Cato Institute's Neal McCluskey has energetically denounced the slimmed-down federal role that Linda Darling-Hammond and I sketched last week, offering a not-unreasonable litany of complaints about federal overreach. (It's amusing that Neal thinks I'm endorsing big government, given that most in education regard me as unduly harsh when it come to federal efforts, but that's a topic for another day.) What's relevant here is that Neal's response also illustrates the problems that bedevil those who want to get Washington "out" of education. The biggest is that even Tea Party sympathizers have shown precious little willingness to get serious about putting an end to federal ed spending.
Conservatives cheerfully promise to "turn off the lights" at the U.S. Department of Education, but even the
