[adventured]

> Isn't the disparity between states (which is even more pronounced at the municipal level) an argument for more federal intervention?

I believe it's an argument for financial subsidy, not an argument for large amounts of control transfer away from local and up the chain to some far away bureaucrat.

The system I'd envision would have large amounts of local state + county control/influence, Federal subsidy to boost poor states who lack the tax resources, and a certain number of Federal supervisory school agency zones that would coordinate with the states in that zone to keep results high and represent the Federal Government's money (the US tax payer's money in theory). The idea would be to stay away from having bureaucrats in DC directly telling people in Idaho how to operate their education systems or how to fix their local problems (the Federal school zone overseeing Idaho would operate more locally and would be accountable to the member states; these Federal zones or agencies would be partners with the states conceptually).