One thing Pres. Reagan didn't accomplish that I looked forward to: getting rid of the Federal Dept. of Education.
All schools should be run on a local basis, with local
accountability. Parents should be able to send their children to the schools best for their children. Competition is the answer to higher standards.
What you've expressed is a contradiction in terms. You can't have true, full *local* control of schools and have "choice" at the same time. True local control means that you have a local school board that answers to no one except the state department of education. It means that the *only* students who may go to your district are those who live within the district. Further, in its most ideal form, it means that the *only* local elementary school your kids can attend is the one nearest their home. There would be no bussing into the district, and no bussing within the district, for "racial and economic balance" or anything else. People who bought a house in a particular area would be *guaranteed* that their children would go to the local school.
The local district would be accountable to the state (i.e. making sure it kept adherence to the state laws & regulations), the local school board, and the voters. The federal gov't, as you put it, should have *no* input into education whatever.
If one's school is based on where the family lives, then "choice" comes in by the ability to move wherever you wish. But if education is truly local, once you live in a certain house, your public-schooled children will go to the *local* school.