Your steelman doesn't seem like much of a steelman. >1. Do not reward poor performance (American's are ~40th best in the world for education, despite spending

Your steelman doesn't seem like much of a steelman. >1. Do not reward poor performance (American's are ~40th best in the world for education, despite spending the most) State based education agencies are no more or less capable of rewarding poor performance. >2. Remove incumbent bureaucrats who may have agendas State bureaucrats absolutely have agendas, and their agendas can be far more radical than national agendas. See Southern states requiring that the Bible be included in the curriculum - that's something that could only happen at the state level. >3. Giving this responsibility to the states lets education be more closely aligned with state values What "state values" should education be aligned with, that cannot be met by a national standard for curriculum? I can't think of a good reason why, say, science or history must be taught differently in one state versus another, other than a desire to impose religious or political bias into the curriculum, which I don't consider valid, if the goal of education is to educate rather than indoctrinate.