In the last generation, and in the last 15 years in particular, the federal government has assumed an increasingly intrusive role in public K-12 education. But this isn't simply a reflection of Washington's current appetite for power; it must also be understood as a natural consequence of a decision made more than a century ago.
Progressive Era reformers, seeking to rationalize America's then-inchoate system of public education, decided that one government body — the school district — should own and operate all public schools in a particular geographic area. By consolidating power, this "exclusive-territory franchise" model determined that future reforms would flow through a central apparatus and down to schools, not from the ground up. It also enabled ambitious reformers to scale their initiatives by moving to higher levels of government: Unsatisfied by district action, reformers worked through the state government, then moved up to the federal level.
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