States should set their own standards and they should insist on matching world standards. My system favors each state only sending enough money to the feds to fund the military, CIA, FBI, etc., and each state keeps the "remainder" money to govern themselves. I don't believe the feds should be able to blackmail states (which they do all the time) by withholding dollars which came from the states in the first place. There would be a department of education in each state run by that state. A small education department would be in Washington, D.C., and it would monitor national and world testing results to let the individual states see how they rank against other states as well as other countries. My system requires other changes within the fed government but we don't have enough space for that now. Many functions would be handled within state government where we could hold local politicians and state workers accountable. The U.S. is too expansive to have everything handled by one federal government, as its left foot does not know what its right foot is doing.

-- Jim Foster, Kennewick