Book excerpt: President Obama has laid the groundwork for an unprecedented centralization of education policy under the guise of promoting educational innovation, accountability, and improved student achievement. In reality, Obama’s new national standards, curricula, and testing – in addition to huge spending commitments by the federal government ¬– shift the policymaking power from individuals and communities to the federal bureaucracy. In this Broadside, Lance Izumi examines Obama’s education policies and shows us why Americans must protect and promote the power of individuals, especially parents, to control children’s education. We should look to the revolutionary school-choice and parental-empowerment laws passed by key states and other nations such as Canada. While Obama is pushing American education in the wrong direction, we can steer it back to local control.