[Maceman]

According to the latest international rating of education in 65 countries, American public schools are in a free fall.

Gee, what a surprise:

In 2010, Barack Obama called for fixing the public education system by giving us the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and “Race to the Top,”

which he said would fix the education system already fixed by the 2001 GW Bush and Ted Kennedy legislation called “No Child Left Behind,”

which was supposed to fix a system supposedly already fixed by a 1994 piece of federal legislation called “Goals 2000,”

which was supposed to fix a system already fixed by “America 2000,”

which was a 1991 response during the Bush administration to a 1983 federal report on education called “A Nation at Risk,

which was published a full four years after Jimmy Carter first fixed the nation’s public school system by establishing a cabinet-level Department of Education in 1979.

[Alberta's Child]

The whole debacle makes much more sense once you realize that "education" in the U.S. is an industry, and that employing large numbers of people with very generous compensation packages is far more important than actually educating students.

[T-Bird45]

Excellent historical summary for recent/modern events in education. ESEA dates to the 1960s in my memory and probably has predecessors that set the stage, especially as the space race began in 1957. This arena was probably the first use of “you must federalize in order to professionalize” argument that shows that position to be hollow and without merit.