WASHINGTON — After spending much of her life fighting for state and local control of education, Betsy DeVos last year found herself at the helm of the federal agency that she had long said stands in the way of educational innovation.

But after a year on the job, Ms. DeVos may have learned a hard lesson: local control means she can’t always get what she wants.

Ms. DeVos this week upbraided state education chiefs, telling them that while she was obligated to approve their federally mandated state education plans, she was not happy about the way they have used their freedom under the new federal law that governs elementary and secondary education, known as the Every Student Succeeds Act.

If the states are supposed to be the laboratories of democracy, Ms. DeVos isn’t seeing much experimentation. But she refuses to violate her principles on states’ rights and tell them what to do.