Students lose when the feds regulate

This administration's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) education program makes me think President Reagan had it right: eliminate the Department of Education. NCLB was supposed to make sure that every child would be able to learn in order to succeed in today's economy. However, the program has raised havoc with state school boards and left teachers demoralized. It has imposed more regulations than have states to waste money by dumping existing programs and starting all over again. It is our children who lose out.

It comes at a time when education is critical to preparing our nation and our students for an economy where knowledge and innovation are the keys to succeed. State education officials, generally, are willing to carry out the policies of each new administration; and professional educators are optimistic that there will be improvement. However, one of the difficulties with national education programs is that each new administration wants to apply its own stamp. As a consequence, each state has to retool and prepare to pamper the new egos. It's too bad some administrations are not willing to build upon the successes of the past.

The administration that seemed to lay a solid foundation for renewing education for the global economy was that of President George H.W. Bush, who convened the Charlottesville Education Summit in 1989. He brought together all the nation's governors, led by then-Gov. Bill Clinton, to develop a national response to the educational challenges the nation would be facing. Much of it was built around earlier findings in the "Nation at Risk Report." It laid out six national educational goals — Goals 2000 — that states could design ways to implement. Unlike the demands and the sanctions in NCLB, these were voluntary and provided a vision that could guide states. Shortly thereafter, the School-to-Work Program was started by the Department of Labor.

Under the Clinton administration, the GOALS 2000 Act was passed, as was the School-to-Work Opportunities Act as its cornerstone. Again, it was a voluntary program each state could accept that allowed for the flexibility carved out at the Charlottesville Education Summit. The School-to-Work program gave funds to states to help students explore different careers, with the assumption that students needed to see the connection between learning and future jobs. Thus, the best way for students to see class work as meaningful was to create a School-to-Work plan that tied three days of class-based learning with two days of work-based learning. It was one of the best ways to prepare students for the new economy and realize the need to become life-long learners.