For many school choice advocates, shuttering the Department of Education (ED) has long been seen as an unattainable dream. However, President-elect Trump has upset the education establishment by announcing his intention to dismantle the federal-level agency. If his administration is successful in doing so, the closure of ED would be an incredible boon to the failing American education system and the students it’s meant to serve.
While viewed as an inextricable part of the nation’s school system, ED is relatively new. Prior to 1980, education was handled entirely at the state level, as the Constitution’s 10th Amendment demands. But in the 1960s, the federal role in education expanded dramatically with the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The bill was meant to alleviate poverty and address the effects of segregation by sending federal dollars to every school district with low-income students. By the late 1970’s, then-President Jimmy Carter decided that a federal-level agency was needed to manage the programs established by the ESEA, and as a result, ED opened its doors in 1980.
Even though the majority of education funding still comes from state and local governments, with an average of only 10% coming from federal coffers, ED uses that 10% to coerce school districts to adopt policies that they might not have otherwise. ED issues numerous regulations and policy guidance documents every year, detailing exactly what localities must do in order to receive their portion of federal education dollars.
Most federal funds go towards benign-sounding programs that help the poor, the disabled, or the otherwise in-need. Title 1 of the ESEA is targeted to schools within majority low-income neighborhoods. Title VI houses the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act fund, which is meant to help disabled children receive the resources they need to get an education. It also has provisions to refund schools for free and reduced lunch programs along with a litany of other programs designed to help those who need it most.
If a state refused federal funding, that state would appear to not care about these programs that target the most disadvantaged in society. But to comply, they must meet the requirements that the government imposes via ED. In 2007, for example, the Obama Administration tried to impose the controversial Common Core standards onto states in exchange for ESEA funds. In addition, they offered competitive grants to those states that best implemented the policies for which the administration advocated.
Another key example of this that Concerned Women for America (CWA) has been engaged in is the fight over Title IX and the Biden Administration’s egregious rewrite of it. By accepting federal dollars, schools must comply with Title IX – originally, that meant offering more opportunities to women. Had the Biden rule been implemented, Title IX would have required schools to allow men into female locker rooms and onto their sports teams. This demonstrates how ED uses the power of the purse to force states to comply with federal policies that are actually harmful to students.
The core philosophical flaw of ED is the notion that education can be one-size-fits-all, that the government knows what is best for kids, and that centralized education will result in better educated children. But anyone who has ever interacted with children knows that that simply is not true – every child has a different way in which they learn best. Some thrive in the classroom setting while others need to be active and work with their hands. Some students may benefit from an apprenticeship outside of the classroom or from a schedule that does not follow the typical 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. school day. Centralized government is not able to cater to the unique characteristics of each student and their families.
This has resulted in a Department of Education that has spent trillions of taxpayer dollars with nothing to show for it. Since 2000, the agency’s budget has increased from $38 billion to $70 billion in 2019, yet student test scores remained stagnant. Today, U.S. reading and math scores are at historic lows. Compared to other nations, the U.S. ranks 34th in math despite spending more money on education than anyone else. According to the Program for International Student Assessment, “there’s been no detectable change in U.S. students’ math scores since 2003 or in science scores since 2006.”
Critics of Trump’s plan to dismantle ED have said that students will suffer if the federal government is not overseeing the education of American students. But Americans need only look to our neighbor to the north to see that that is not true. Canada’s education system is entirely decentralized, run instead by each of their 10 provinces, and yet their students regularly outperform U.S. students on international rankings. Canada is proof that students can thrive without the wasteful spending of a federal education bureaucracy.
But how could the next administration go about getting rid of an entire federal agency? After all, ED oversees a number of programs that are beneficial, though currently mismanaged. One solution would be to move some of those programs to other agencies, such as housing the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Justice. The Department of Treasury could oversee federal student loans, as that agency already handles money and lending for other aspects of the government. Other programs could be cut, leaving it up to states to decide what sort of governmental aid their students need. The transition would likely be messy in the short-term, but the long-term result would be less government bloat and overspending and an education system better equipped to meet the needs of individual students.
Closing ED does not mean that public school teachers will become unemployed or that local schools will lose their funding. It simply shifts the responsibility for many of these decisions out of the hands of D.C. bureaucrats and into those of people with a closer connection to each locality.
While getting rid of the Department of Education will be a monumental task, it is one worth doing for the sake of America’s students. Not only does every child deserve an education best suited to their unique gifts and talents, but the future of America depends on a citizenry that is well-educated. Returning education to the states, as the Founders intended, is the best next step to achieve that.