Every public school should be run and controlled at the local level. The taxpayers should have a say in everything concerning schools. I don’t even think it should be managed at the state and county level it should be individual towns. Of course there should be some standards or guidelines for all schools in America but they should only be concerned with the reading, writing and rithmetic facets of education.

Oneguy is correct, everything should be under local control. It used to be that way but over the years non-educational government got involved. That precipitated the rise of teacher’s unions. Eventually we got the state level government involved, then the fed got into the act.

As long as we have state level funding, we do need state level testing. The states should have a department that designs and administers the tests. No need for the districts to get involved.

The tests should help parents decide where they want their kids enrolled. Make schools and districts compete for students and allow the parents and kids determine where they want to go.

In fairness, Carter didn’t create it out of whole cloth — he spun if off of the earlier Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, which was cooked up by Eisenhower. Of course, back then it was mostly concerned with special educational programs, covering things like rat control. I expect that its bloat began not that long after, though, in the post-Sputnik era.