The Gravity of Big Government in Education, for One

Despite agreement with the thrust of the initiative, this sort of thinking is proving insidiously detrimental to the health of the nation:

... the federal stimulus law gives Obama a powerful incentive to push the expansion of charter schools. The law set up a $5 billion fund to reward states and school districts that adopt innovations the administration supports. The fund is part of $100 billion for education over the next two years.

"We want to reward those states that are willing to lead the country where we need to go and are willing to push this reform agenda very, very hard," Duncan told the AP.

"There are a number of states that are leading this effort, and we want to invest a huge amount of money into them, a minimum of $100 million, probably north of that," he said.

"And the states that don't have the stomach or the political will, unfortunately, they're going to lose out," Duncan said.

Even though any given citizen will favor the results in one instance or another, we must cease encouraging the states to sell their sovereignty to a central government that knows best. Furthermore, it ought to transform warning bells to a cacophony that the federal government is making the purchase with money that it simply does not have and should neither take nor attempt to create.