New Federalism can be a political philosophy of devolution, or the transfer of specific powers from the United States federal government to the states. The primary objective of New Federalism, unlike that of the eighteenth-century political philosophy of Federalism, is the restoration to the states of some of the autonomy and power which they lost to the federal government as a consequence of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.
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Education policies under New Federalism

Education has also been very controversial under New Federalism, but for unique reasons. Virtually all groups, State and Federal, agree that a controlled education system is absolutely critical. The division, even so, is that some believe that the education system ought to be nationally united (and as a result controlled by the federal government), even though opponents think that education should certainly vary by State (and for that reason be controlled by the State governments).

Some New Federalists, such as President Reagan, have flirted with the thought of abolishing the Department of Education, but the effort has been unsuccessful. Throughout the administration of George W. Bush, the president and Congress cooperated to pass the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, which needed states to meet federal testing standards.[7] Utah was the 1st state to reject NCLB, plus the Law firm General of Connecticut sued the federal govt for underfunding NCLB.