The President's Education Agenda Was Left Behind

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act passed by the U.S. House of Representatives would be better titled The Missed Opportunities Education Act. I voted against H.R. 1 because this legislation does little to improve the quality of education for Indiana students and creates an even more bloated federal bureaucracy.

Our founding fathers enshrined in the Constitution the principle of federalism -- the notion that the federal government should involve itself only with those issues that states and localities could not resolve on their own. States and localities are closest to the needs of the people and know best how to address those needs.

In his "No Child Left Behind" proposal, President Bush sent Congress an outline of the major initiatives needed to reform America's schools. His original vision would have empowered parents with choice and would have given state and local governments the flexibility to use federal dollars to improve our schools. Unfortunately, the bill Congress passed looks nothing like the one President Bush sent us. I am disappointed and saddened that the President's proposal, which could have bettered our children's lives, was left behind in the legislative process.

Congress passed a bill that mandates federal testing and calls for a 22 percent increase in spending on the education bureaucracy next year -- double the President's original request. As it now stands, H.R. 1 will result in the largest funding increase for the Department of Education since it was created during the Carter Administration.

The House Education Committee eliminated the best proposals in the bill. Committee members replaced the "Straight A's" provision, which would have freed states from burdensome federal regulations and allowed them flexible use of federal funds, with a 900-page program that provides little relief from regulations and allows few transfers of funds.

House Democrats also eliminated school choice provisions, replacing them with hollow "public school choice." Under public school choice, failing schools must offer a choice of public -- but not private -- schools to their students. This bill denies parents of children in our poorest performing schools the right to choose private education.

In my visits to schools across the Second District of Indiana, teachers, administrators and parents have asked me to fight for real education reform. They did not send me to Washington D.C. to increase the federal government's role in their lives. They sent me to fight for innovation and reform by funneling resources, not red tape, from the federal government to our local schools. Over the past couple of weeks, three-quarters of constituents writing and calling my office have opposed H.R. 1.

In stifling the energy and innovation of the fifty states, this education bill does not allow the American people to govern themselves as our founding fathers intended. James Madison, wrote that, under the limited government he helped conceive, "the powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government are few and defined." These powers include war making authority and foreign commerce. Powers assigned to the states, however, are "numerous and indefinite," and "extend to all the objects which... concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State."

Education is a top priority for our country, but it remains an issue of primary concern to the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the states. Responsibility for educating America's young people is, and should ever remain, in the hands of parents with the aid of state and local government when appropriate. If we continue to usurp the power of duly elected state and local leaders -- those most accountable to the people -- then government of the people, by the people, and for the people will not long stand.