Is this a good idea?

From several sources, we have seen President Obama "challenging lawmakers to strengthen education."

Sure, a strong educational system is key to the future.... but one must ask "Do we really want lawmakers involved?"

What "success" can we attribute to lawmakers' policy in the past 40 years?

Is ESEA an unqualified success? How bout NCLB?

Federal lawmakers are about centralized control. Education, on the other hand, is a local phenomena. Each individual working within a social structure (using a brain with its limitations and potentials) to understand the world, to make predictions and create explanations, and to do this on a range of scales-- from simple skills for daily life to deep contemplations of the meaning of life and one's place in the cosmos.