When you hear “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help,” it’s sometimes wise to head for the hills, especially when the help is questionable from a public policy perspective.

West Virginia’s latest federal helper is Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who plans to hold certain federal funds hostage unless states rewrite their education laws in important ways.   Among other things, Secretary Duncan wants states like West Virginia to make their laws more friendly to charter schools.

Soon after beginning this blog, I wrote a post about a major national study of charter schools in 16 states that suggested that the majority of charter schools were not working well: 17 percent performed better than traditional public schools, while 37 percent performed worse.

It’s one thing to require states to implement laws that clearly represent good public policy when the political will otherwise might not be there to do so.  It’s another thing altogether to require states to implement public policy that is questionable at best.  West Virginia does not need this type of federal help.