Child Left Behind Federalism

No Child Left Behind an Issue of Federalism

Since the time that the Constitution was signed and the government of the United States was created, there have been many disputes in regards to the balance of power between the State Government and the Federal Government. The equal sharing of powers between these two branches is known as Federalism and it has been the cornerstone of our government for hundreds of years. In the eyes of the founding fathers this system of divided powers was far stronger than just having one centralized government. The two separate branches each share the responsibilities of the nation and are able to each help out the country in their own ways. This system works well but the State and Federal Governments sometimes …show more content…
In the United States there is a federal system of government in which there is supposed to be an equal balance of powers between both the state and federal governments. This system has been present in America ever since the constitution was written and is often thought of as one of the greatest achievements of our founding fathers. They did not want to be under the rule of one centralized form of government because they had just fought to get there independence and they wanted a new form of government that was fair and just. Therefore they came up with the idea of establishing a government made up of two sovereign powers that has stood ever since. This form of government is very effect if it is used as it was intended which would be that the federal government would take care of broad issues such as collecting taxes or regulation interstate commerce and the state government would take car more specialized issues such as public health and education. However the federal government has begun to over step and work on some of the state issues such as public transportation, public safety and public education. The No Child Left Behind Law falls under the category of public education and it was created by the federal government to be used at the state and local levels. The question remains of whether the federal government imposing this law on states demonstrates an equal balance of power between the two levels of government. There are certain issues that should be addressed at the federal level but the education changes brought about by the No Child Left Behind Law should according to the constitution be dealt with by the state government. This is due to the undeniable fact that often times the federal agencies are not flexible or equipped enough to adequately handle problems at the state and local levels. Yet many laws similar to