Mission of the U.S. Department of Education:
ED’s mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.
Congress established the U.S. Department of Education (ED) on May 4, 1980, in the Department of Education Organization Act (Public Law 96-88 of October 1979). Under this law, ED’s mission is to:
• Strengthen the Federal commitment to assuring access to equal educational opportunity for every individual;
• Supplement and complement the efforts of states, the local school systems and other instrumentalities of the states, the private sector, public and private nonprofit educational research institutions, community-based organizations, parents, and students to improve the quality of education;
• Encourage the increased involvement of the public, parents, and students in Federal education programs;
• Promote improvements in the quality and usefulness of education through Federally supported research, evaluation, and sharing of information;
• Improve the coordination of Federal education programs;
• Improve the management of Federal education activities; and
• Increase the accountability of Federal education programs to the President, the Congress, and the public.
Independent Institute, 2019: Federal Report Finds U.S. Department of Education a Massive Failure.
A new report raises questions about how the U.S. Department of Education monitors the performance of its wide-ranging elementary and secondary education programs.
The department currently receives $38 billion for its major K-12 education programs. Yet the assessment says those programs are plagued by “complex and persistent” challenges, many of which have been identified previously, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the official “congressional watchdog” charged with ensuring taxpayer dollars are spent efficiently.
Specifically, the GAO identified four key shortcomings in the department: oversight and monitoring, data quality, capacity, and evaluation methodologies. As the GAO makes clear, it is not the only oversight agency raising concerns about the department’s program management. What’s more, such problems have plagued our federal education departments since the first one took form back in 1867.
The GAO’s findings underscore more fundamental problems with having a Department of Education. In the United States, education is supposed to be a strictly state and local matter under Article 10 of the Constitution. In fact, the word education does not even appear in the Constitution and, until the Civil War era, Congress took no action to extend its authority into K-12 education.
…the fundamental problem with the Department of Education is that it removes decision-making authority from the real education experts: parents and taxpayers in local communities.
Currently, the federal government provides just 8 percent of total K-12 education funding. Yet states and school officials have to agree to myriad federal mandates to access that funding. Given the ongoing problems with the department, in contrast to the growth of successful state-level parental choice programs, it is well worth considering abolishing the U.S. Department of Education once and for all.
Foundation for Economic Education, 1993: The Failure of American Public Education.
During the 1980s the school reform bandwagon got a new set of tires and a fresh coat of paint. Following the publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983, governors instituted all sorts of teacher training and testing programs, curriculum changes, and higher performance standards for students. At the same time, states dramatically increased spending on all facets of public education. And President Ronald Reagan, promising to eliminate the U.S. Education Department during his campaign, actually helped administer a significant outflow of new federal money for public education, mostly directed toward specific programs for needy or minority students.
Despite the widespread public impression, felt every five years or so since World War II, that something “new” was happening in public school reform, education statistics tell a different story. They demonstrate very little change in student performance (and most measurable changes were downward).
What has clearly been on the rise in recent decades is the use of America’s public schools for the purpose of engineering some social outcome deemed desirable by political leaders. This is an unavoidable, and perhaps insurmountable, failing of government-run education.
Both liberal do-gooders and conservative culture warriors look to public education to achieve public goods. In the 1950s and 1960s, a national focus on the problem of racial segregation helped steer education policy away from questions of excellence to questions of equity and access. In the 1970s, activists bent on such diverse causes as environmentalism, humanism, spiritualism, and even socialism began to target the school curriculum. They produced all sorts of programs, handbooks, textbooks, and other materials, and used political influence to have these adopted as part of the school day in many jurisdictions. Meanwhile, America’s developmental psychologists and early childhood experts, deep in their environmentalist (in the sense of non-genetic) phase, got the attention of educators and political leaders. They argued that formal education should be supplemented with special counseling and self-esteem programs, that formal education should be extended into the preschool years, and that the federal government should be involved in funding these early-intervention and compensatory education programs. Policy-makers believed them. So we now have Chapter 1, Head Start, in-school counselors, and other “innovations,” the usefulness of which is now in great doubt.
By any reasonable measure, America’s monopolistic, bureaucratic, over-regulated system of public schools is woefully unprepared to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. Political, business, and education leaders continue to talk about “reforming” the current public education system. They should, instead, be discussing how to replace it.
The U.S. Department of Education (ED) was established with the mission to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access. However, a comprehensive performance review, based on various metrics and public perception, suggests that the department has largely failed to meet these objectives over the past decade.
Student Performance:
One of the most critical indicators of the ED’s effectiveness is student performance. Recent data reveals a troubling decline in educational outcomes. According to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American students are struggling in core subjects like reading and math, with scores at their lowest in decades. Specifically, only 35% of fourth graders demonstrated reading skills at or above the proficient level in 2019, while a significant 34% were below basic skills. This decline is not limited to literacy; in math and science, similar patterns of underperformance are evident, with fourth graders showing better performance in math but still a substantial portion not reaching proficiency. The performance in problem-solving also lags behind international peers, with the U.S. ranking 24th in numeracy among industrialized nations. These statistics paint a picture of an education system failing to prepare students adequately for future challenges.
Teacher Views:
The perspective from within the education system provides a further layer of critique. A 2023 Pew Research Center survey highlighted a significant lack of confidence among educators, with 82% of public school K-12 teachers stating that the education system is in worse condition than it was five years ago. This sentiment reflects a broader dissatisfaction with the support and direction provided by the ED, suggesting that policy initiatives have not met the needs of the educational workforce or have failed to improve the learning environment.
Public Views:
Public perception mirrors the concerns of the educational community. According to a Pew Research Center survey from November 2023, half of U.S. adults (51%) believe that the country’s public K-12 education system is generally going in the wrong direction, with only 16% feeling optimistic about its trajectory. This widespread skepticism indicates a public that feels disconnected from or disillusioned with the efforts of the ED to steer education toward positive outcomes.
High School Graduation Rates:
Graduation rates serve as another measure of educational success. Data shows that high school graduation rates are lower now than they were a decade ago, signaling a regression rather than progress in ensuring students complete their secondary education. This decline questions the effectiveness of federal policies aimed at reducing dropout rates and enhancing graduation rates.
Enrollment Trends:
Enrollment statistics also hint at a systemic issue. In 2012, public school enrollment was at 91% of all K-12 students, but by 2022, this had decreased to 87%, representing a loss of nearly two million students. This shift might indicate a lack of confidence in public education or dissatisfaction with the educational offerings, potentially driven by the perceived failures of the ED to innovate or improve the system.
Teacher Shortages:
Finally, the crisis in teacher staffing underscores the systemic challenges. By 2024, there were an estimated 55,000 vacant and 270,000 underqualified teacher positions in the U.S. This shortage, coupled with a record-high teacher turnover rate of 14% two years prior, points to a failure in retaining and attracting qualified educators. The inability to maintain a robust teaching force suggests that the conditions and support for teachers, which should be a priority for the ED, are insufficient.
When evaluating the U.S. Department of Education from a performance review perspective, the evidence overwhelmingly suggests failure across multiple critical dimensions. From declining student performance in key subjects to dissatisfaction among teachers and the public, from reduced high school graduation rates to significant enrollment drops, and from acute teacher shortages to high turnover rates, the ED has not met its mission effectively. The findings call for a reevaluation of the strategies, policies, and perhaps the structure of the U.S. Department of Education to better serve the educational needs of American students and educators. The future of American education depends on this critical introspection and subsequent action.
Okay, so what’s the plan?
The Heritage Foundation, Dec 19, 2024: Why Is Congress Funding the Failing Department of Education?
Since its creation in May 1980, the Left has demanded Republicans justify opposing federal intervention in U.S. education. However, with President-elect Donald Trump‘s Department of Government Efficiency now promising to “outright delete” the Department of Education, it’s time to flip the script.
The real question isn’t, “Why should we eliminate the Department of Education?” It’s, “How can Congress possibly justify funding this ineffective and unconstitutional institution any longer?”
The answer is simple: they can’t.
By its own standards, the Department of Education has been an abject failure. The agency’s mission is “to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.” Yet, nearly 45 years after its creation under former President Jimmy Carter, high school seniors’ math and reading outcomes remain stagnant. Worse still, the academic achievement gap between the United States’s poorest and wealthiest students, a gap of four grade levels, has not narrowed since the department’s inception.
In just the past four years, the Biden administration has weaponized the federal government against parents and children in unprecedented ways. The FBI, under President Joe Biden’s direction, created “threat tags” to monitor parents simply for exercising their First Amendment rights at school board meetings and speaking up about critical matters such as school safety, boys in female bathrooms and locker rooms, and sexualized content in classrooms.
Meanwhile, the Department of Education rewrote Title IX rules to expand the definition of “sex” discrimination to include “gender identity” and then handed enforcement over to the Department of Agriculture, which threatened to withhold school meal funding from institutions that refused to embrace this radical ideology.
When the feds weren’t busy harassing parents or leveraging food for compliance with their woke agenda, the Department of Education demonstrated gross incompetence. It failed even in basic administration, botching the launch of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid that millions of families rely on to access federal student loans and grants. This isn’t governance. It’s an affront to families in the U.S.
Considering these egregious violations, Congress has a moral obligation to work with the Trump administration to dismantle the Department of Education. The onus isn’t on Republicans to justify why this bureaucratic relic should be abolished. It is on the Left to make the case for why this bureaucratic boondoggle should remain.
Predictably, many apologists will fearmonger, arguing that abolishing the department will hurt parents, students, and teachers. However, history tells a different story. U.S. education flourished long before the department ever existed and will do so again after it’s gone.
Indeed, eliminating or significantly rightsizing the department would be a boon to parents and teachers. Parents would have more agency over their child’s share of education funding, while teachers and school leaders would contend with fewer federal mandates and regulations. Students would be freer to learn and teachers freer to teach.
The first step is for Congress to pass a Department of Education Reorganization Act, eliminating all duplicative, ineffective, or inappropriate programs—programs that never belonged under federal control in the first place. The few that remain should be block-granted back to the states, empowering state and local leaders to allocate those funds for lawful education purposes under their own laws.
States, in turn, should make this funding student-centered and portable, giving families the freedom to choose the education option that best suits their needs. Any remaining federal responsibilities should be reassigned to agencies better suited to manage them. For example, funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act should move to the Department of Health and Human Services. Student loans can be managed by the Treasury Department, and data collection can be handled by the Census Bureau.
As part of the reconciliation process, Congress should also create a mandatory buyout fund that the president could use to pay Department of Education employees to retire early. In the meantime, all agency employees should be required to work in person five days a week.
In sum, the same Congress that created the Department of Education can and must abolish it. This isn’t just achievable. It’s politically popular, fiscally responsible, and morally essential. Any politician unwilling to take this step owes Americans an explanation as to why.