This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The President's Race to the Top Fund, part of the stimulus plan, builds on President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, at least in one

sense, it is continuing to inject the federal government into decisions about public education

best left to state and local governments.

So says Cato Institute policy analyst Adam Schaefer.

The president plans to spend a few billion dollars

essentially injecting the federal government into a policy direction role in in terms of what the states and now districts do

He got some resistance from state governments, in particular Texas, as Governor Perry has been the most prominent, who did not want to increase federal involvement even for a few million extra dollars. They thought the opportunity costs for too much,

filling out the paperwork for possibly not even winning the prize, and then also

situating the state where they're beholden to the federal government for their reforms and

what they think is working rather than what the state government or local

districts think are working. The president then proposed to go around the states directly to the districts to disperse the funds,

essentially cutting out the state's policy-making role in education.

And that's a very aggressive move the federal

government really has no business whatsoever constitutionally being

involved in education policy and they certainly don't have a role in cutting

out the responsible level which is the state government.

The No Child Left Behind Act essentially laid all the groundwork for doing exactly this, though.

That's correct.

No Child Left Behind. George Bush was big on expansion of federal federal control

and federal spending on K through 12 education. It's been a bipartisan problem for decades, really. The

...