Education Reforms: Examining the Federal Role in Public School Accountability

According to a recent Gallup poll, Americans' opinion of the U.S. public school system continues to plummet. Only 34 percent of the survey participants indicated "quite a lot" or "a great deal" of confidence in our public schools. This should come as no surprise. We don't have to look far to find discouraging statistics about fourth graders struggling to read or rising high school dropout rates. Decades of escalating Federal intervention in the Nation's classrooms has not only failed to raise student achievement levels, it has also created a complex web of red tape that ties the hands of State and local education officials.