Education Reform Lesson One: Review Past Mistakes

Ken McIntyre / March 16, 2011

Congress needs to take stock of the daunting burdens of paperwork and red tape imposed by expanding federal regulation of local schools and beware creating new obstacles to student achievement, one of Heritage’s education experts testified yesterday before a House subcommittee conducting the first such review since the Clinton administration.

“I commend this subcommittee for renewing attention to a pressing problem in education policy today. Serious investigation like this into the scope and effects of federal intervention has not taken place for more than a decade, despite massive growth in the federal role in education,” Jennifer A. Marshall, director of domestic policy studies, told the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education.

Marshall‘s testimony identified three major costs of compliance with federal education policy: (more…)