No Child Left Behind by a Realistic Test

I saw the news that state test scores improved since NCLB five years ago. Two thoughts sprang to mind: they are teaching to the test and helping kids game it (a la The Wire) - or - the tests are just being dumbed down.

This got me further thinking: how can a central government really help a local one with education in a fair manner. If the Feds are just reduced to handing out money, it is inevitably going to result in unfairness, as schools that do the worst job with their local students and their local revenue get subsidized by federal monies via programs and grants. That to me is not a fair taxation policy; especially with Americans paying so much in taxes, usually via their property tax to pay for their local schools.

It also dislocates control of the school further from home, encouraging a "it's not my fault" attitude to metastasize, in my opinion. "Hey schools aren't something that we parents do, DC is supposed to!" (Look at the DC schools before you ask for that.)

But, what the government could do, is act like a QA department in a well run software organization. Sure they can't actually run the schools or even fund them without causing worse problems, but what they could do is figure out a lightweight mechanism for evaluating all schools consistently and then apply that, this would give parents critical independent information about the schools they are paying so much for. Of course add in school choice and then you allow parents to actually do something about it. But I think the school choice (like other choice arguments) should be won or loss on the state level.

Of course federal money being spent on dept. of education in general feels... wrong, but at least that would be a useful and fair expense.