ABSTRACT
The responsibility, direction and oversight of public education in the USA do not constitutionally reside in the federal government but in the individual states. Indeed, the term education does not appear in the US Constitution, and although public education is mandatory in all fifty states, there is no national legal mandate that requires states to provide public education. Each of the states has its own policies and programmes which vary sharply in how much control and budget responsibility is delegated to individual communities within the state.
