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I think this particular article is vague. She seems to be writing to an audience already familiar with her previous writings. I didn't know anything about her.

But, now I do. I just did a (long) search to find out where she stands. Politically, she is an independent who has been critical of both liberals and conservatives. But she has been a long-time supporter of national testing, which falls in line with the article above, as well as increased funding of education.

In this article from 2005, she's much more straightforward in advocating federalization of education:

(SNIP)"Americans must recognize that we need national standards, national tests and a national curriculum."(/SNIP)

But she never mentions what should happen to the schools that do not perform to federal standards.

She has written other articles in favor of state and local control of the schools, too. In reading through all the different articles and quotes, it's clear she wants Washington to establish national standards while states figure out how to meet those standards. In other words, if a school doesn't meet the national standards, the school/state must establish a plan to meet the standards without federal interference. I can only presume that means she doesn't want the schools to be penalized by Washington if they fail.

I note that she says in the article that allowing students in failing schools to move to other schools is not a good option for many students, because for a majority, there are no other schools available.

I suppose you could penalize failing schools by cutting off federal funds to them, but in many cases, that wouldn't work either, because most of these schools are in very poor districts. State or federal takeovers might work better, because in many of these cases, the funds that are available are not being well-spent, going to administrators etc rather than being spent in the classroom. Washington DC would be an example.

In some cases, I'd posit that the schools are failing at least in part because the communities are in such disarray - in some poor inner city areas, the chaos in the schools reflects the chaos in family & social life in the communities.

I tend to think chosing an objective national test for all schools to use might be a good start for being able to realistically determine educational quality in all schools.