In that year, which was some 40 years after the start of a massive effort by reformers to consolidate districts into larger administrative units, there were about 120,000 individual school districts in the U.S. This meant that on average there were only two schools per district. Now, that is really local control. Even now, after consolidation has continued for another 60 years, we still have about 15,000 separate school districts -- each with primary control over financing, staffing, and setting curriculum standards for our schoolsCertainly state governments have taken steps over the years to assert greater control over these matters in K-12 schooling, and even the federal government has made tiny and tentative moves in this direction. But all these efforts have been undertaken in the face of enormous resistance by local communities, sciencebiology which have vigorously fought to preserve the autonomy of their schools.

welcome to the internets premier listing for all your educational needs. Containing over 15,000 links to some of the best educational resources on the Internet, The Library in the Sky guides teachers, students, parents,librarians, and members of the community on their journeys through cyberspace. The Library was visited over 900,000 times in 1999, and we anticipate well over 1 million visitors in 2000! THE MATTER OF setting standards for American education is certainly quite visible these days, but much of what we hear about it is not very enlightening. The talk is frequently filled with ideological heat rather than with critical light, and the tone of the discussion is more often nostalgic than realistic. In addition, the pitch in favor of standards is

educational bureaucrats, ideological indoctrinators and other beneficiaries of today’s system. What will happen when the growing number of homeschooling families withdraw their political support for the enormous taxes required to fund today’s $300 billion government system? To combat these threats, defenders of the status quo are fighting back with all the legal, legislative, and economic weapons at their disposal. The most insidious of these tactics is the systematic undermining and co-opting of the homeschooling movement by establishing government homeschooling programs. Government homeschooling programs set seductive lures before families by providing “free” resources, teachers, extracurricular activities, facilities, and even cash reimbursement. When enough families have voluntarily returned to the government system, it will be a relatively straightforward sciencebiology matter to

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