[allmendream]

Unfunded mandates are not Conservative. The burden of educating special needs children has been put on the States. If the federal government funds their mandate it will free up education money in the States.

No, educating all Americans to the best of their ability to learn is not ‘RINO’.

[donna]

Education belonged to the states until big federal government took it over. It is not conservative in any way for the federal government to be involved with public schools.

Excerpt:

The United States Department of Education is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government. Created by the Department of Education Organization Act it was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on October 17, 1979 and began operating on May 4, 1980. (snip)

A previous Department of Education was created in 1867 but soon was demoted to an Office in 1868. Its creation a century later in 1979 was controversial and opposed by many in the Republican Party, who saw the department as an unconstitutional, unnecessary federal bureaucratic intrusion into local affairs.

Unlike the systems of most other countries, education in the United States is highly decentralized, and the federal government and Department of Education is not heavily involved in determining curricula or educational standards (with the recent exception of the No Child Left Behind Act).

This has been left to state and local school districts. The quality of educational institutions and their degrees is maintained through an informal private process known as accreditation, over which the Department of Education has no direct public jurisdictional control.