You can't seriously expect a complete answer here. I could spend a whole academic career as a political science professor on that.

Education should be primarily a state issue, defense federal. Obviously. Food safety ought to be federal, but not food stamps. Stuff along those lines.

That;'s the kinda things I was looking for, not a complete detailed list.

YBut really education? I would put that as federal but then again I do know someone who got screwed over moving across country with high school credits.

Heck yes education should be state -- if even that. I'd probably also make food safety state, for that matter, but I'd be open to hearing arguments.


"Having impartial committees draw congressional districts"

Where will you find an impartial committee?

Why should education be state? People move across state lines all the time. Wouldn't it be better to have the education standards set at the federal level so a person wouldn't have to you know taken another year of school to play catch up with their new states guidelines. Yeah I know someone that happened to they were pissed about it.

Some of our food safety is pretty ridiculous I'd be ok with that on a state level.

Or someone move from my district to West Palm Beach and be two years ahead and never challenged in their public school again.

Or just send your kid to private school and don't worry about it from then on.

"Where do you find an impartial committee?"

I'm pretty sure some states already have cut their legislatures out of the process, so maybe just copy them. If you divorce the process completely from the political arena then I imagine it would be fairly easy to get an impartial map drawn.


It's too bad for your friend, but better for him or her in the long term. They're now in a state that was able to place higher education standards than the other one, which ideally produces better educated students. Standards set in Washington have to appeal to the lowest common denominator, and drag standards down rather than pulling them up like having individual states doing it would. After all, eventually your friends home state would have to raise standards since it would be producing unacceptably uncompetitive students.

No, Celticfox, it wouldn't be better. There's no reason to think the feds would do as well as one of the good districts instead of one of the poor ones (that's certainly not the case in general when they so something, including education), and it's better to have a variety and experimentation and find new things that work rather than have one big mediocre system.

Yes, sometimes it's inconvenient (moving is in many ways), and maybe an interstate compact to make that process easier would even be appropriate (as happens for, for example, drivers licenses).

But furthermore, education is deeply reflective of values that change wildly as you cross the country, and each community should be able to choose how they want to do it. Nationalizing it would cause permanent war, anger, hatred, and misunderstanding. Such region-dependent and controversial things should be, where possible, handled at the state level so that disagreements can remain just that and not become tyranny of one culture over another.

(I think the failure to respect this last point is one of the big things causing excessive polarization in this country).

The federal government has too much vested interest in food safety, primarily with GM companies versus organic, pesticides, etc etc... if you want my take, food safety ought to be on an individual level. Everything ought to be labeled for what it is, not what the company wants you to think it is, and if you want to eat Agent Orange, well, you were the one that chose to eat it.

Word, bo.

That's exactly how I feel about food as well.