Implementing Federal Education Policy: The Definition of Insanity

According to the Wyoming Department of Education, Wyoming will not be receiving a waiver renewal from the United States Department of Education for the 2014-2015 school year, and this is ultimately a good thing. This means the state will operate under the dictates of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), a federal education mandate developed by President Bush in 2002 requiring that states set standards, test from those standards, and initiate yearly punitive accountability measures based on test results.

These punitive measures apply to schools labeled as too low in student test scores for specific subjects and categories of students. They include imposing federal government supervision on local schools, dictating how Title 1 funds should be spent, and requiring measures such as one on one tutoring for failing kids. Continued failure could lead to school reorganization or a complete school takeover. It should be noted that schools have continued to fail, despite the fact that NCLB was put in place with the federal promise that no child would be "left behind."

President Obama's Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) waiver allowed states to waive many NCLB mandates in exchange for adopting his plethora of federal mandates. These include adopting uniform national "college and career ready" requirements – also known as the Common Core – testing for these, and demanding teacher accountability based on the results of the tests. Teachers would be accountable for their students' performance on federal tests.

Do those two federal education policies sound familiar? They are.

NCLB, like all former federal education mandates, is widely accepted as having failed in its purpose to improve the outcomes of public education; academic performances have not significantly improved nor have achievement gaps lessened. That states like Wyoming scrambled to accept yet another round of expensive, disruptive and doomed-to-fail federal education mandates in order to be waived from the penalty portions of President Bush's equally expensive, disruptive and failed NCLB clearly illustrates the futile insanity of continuing federal involvement in public education. Now is not the time for "if at first you don't succeed, try – try – and try again."

The fact that Wyoming is not receiving the ESEA waiver is a good thing. Enacting federal education policy at the state level and calling it state education policy is no substitute for developing an actual state policy that values the individuality and uniqueness of our children. And yet it would seem the only education policy Wyoming has developed in the past 10 years has been to quietly follow the federal government's lead. We can do better than that. We must do better than that.

While for many in government the idea of forging our own unique path in Wyoming will seem a monumental task given the current federal drumbeat demanding national uniformity and conformity in all things education – from adopting uniform national standards – the Common Core, to conforming to every federal government dictate in exchange for a few pieces of silver. And yet why would we follow this drumbeat? The federal government's track record in improving education is less than impressive. More like a dismal failure. Why are we signing on to repeat history in the desperate gamble we will get different results? We won't.

It is just pure insanity. And another generation of Wyoming children will pay the price if Wyoming policymakers don't wake up. It's time we developed real education policy in Wyoming.

Wyoming families deserve education policy that acknowledges and puts primacy on parental authority. They deserve policy that at its heart cultivates variety and values choice in the delivery of education in all its forms, public and private.

From deregulating private schooling to allowing multi-family homeschooling to implementing opportunity scholarships so all parents can chose where and how their children will be educated, these are the kinds of policies Wyoming can pursue.