Debate Desk
Is the U.S. Department of Education Essential to American Schools?
Washington supplies a small share of school funding and no classrooms; the department grew from a 1979 political bargain and its record does not show gains.
The claim
Supporters say the department enforces civil rights, administers student aid and Pell grants, supports children with disabilities and collects data. Without it, they say, protections for vulnerable students would weaken and student aid would be chaotic.
The answer in three points
- The Constitution does not mention education, and the Tenth Amendment leaves what it does not delegate to the states and the people. Schools have been run by states and local boards since the founding, and the federal role is recent and limited.
- The department was created in 1979, as a promise to a political ally, and the record since does not show improvement. Test scores for older students have been flat while the department's budget grew. More federal rules have meant more compliance staff in local districts and less teaching.
- Functions that matter can be preserved without a cabinet department. Civil rights enforcement can be done by the Department of Justice, student aid by the Treasury, and block grants can send funds to states with fewer strings. Closing or shrinking the department is a question of where the work is best done.
Decisions about children's schooling are best made by the families and communities who know them.
The numbers
- The Department of Education Organization Act was signed in October 1979 and the department began operating in 1980, according to the department's history.
- The National Center for Education Statistics reports that federal funds make up roughly a tenth of spending on public elementary and secondary education, with states and localities providing the rest.
- The Tenth Amendment, ratified in 1791, reserves powers not delegated to the United States to the states or the people.
What they will say next
"Who will protect students with disabilities?" The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is a statute, and its rights can be enforced through the courts and other agencies. A department is not the source of the right.
"The states will let students down." Some states will do better than others, and that variation is how a federal system learns. States such as Florida and Mississippi have improved reading through their own reforms.
"Student aid needs a national office." It does, and it can be run efficiently by an agency with a narrower mission, with oversight of the colleges that take the money.
"This is an attack on public education." It is an argument about who should run it, and many who favor local control are strong supporters of public schools.
Power closer to the family makes for better schools. Congress decides by law, and voters decide by voting.
"Federal data on schools is valuable." It is, and the data collection can be performed by a smaller statistical agency. Research and reporting do not require a department with regulatory power over local schools.