[baddox]

I haven't done a lot of research, but from the few public school teachers I know personally, I glean that a lot of state and federal public school "regulation" is not of the explicit legal type, but rather takes the form of pressure from conditional subsidies.

[pflats]

States set their own educational requirements. The federal government has no "hard" power there, but it has a big pile of money, lots of ideas, and likes to promote the latter with the former.