Would Education Improve If The Ed Were Dead?

What is the US Department of Education, what is its historical significance and exactly what does it do (or not do) for public school students in our country? The Department is located in the District of Columbia in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Building at 400 Maryland Avenue SW. Right after the Civil War, the Office of Education was created to help ensure civil rights as a part of Reconstruction. It was later named the Bureau of Education, and became part of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. President Carter, by executive order, created the Department of Education and promoted it to cabinet status in 1980. The Department is run by the US Secretary of Education, has over 4,000 employees and a budget in 2024 of $268 billion. Its original budget in 1980 was $14 billion, but even with those increases it is still the smallest of all cabinet agencies. All in all, the department is a collection of professional bureaucrats that manage student loans, write rules for the dispensation of a variety of grant and title programs and generate vast amounts of paperwork requirements that state educational agencies are required to follow if they expect to receive Federal funds. They teach no students, and their primary functions are administration and oversight. Their public relations department, for example, spends in excess of $10 million per year and is run by 89 staff members whose sole purpose seems to be informing the public of the importance of their agency and the data it collects.

There seems to be some debate among politicians whether or not the department itself could be eliminated through an executive order cancelling the executive order that initially established it or whether its abolition would require Congressional action. Regardless of how that argument ends, if the department itself were dissolved most of the programs it oversees were established by congressional actions, like the $18 billion in Title 1 programs providing financial assistance to school districts with low income students, the $16 billion for Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the $31 billion for Pell Grants and Work Study for low income students in postsecondary education and the student loan programs (totaling $1.7 billion in 2024 and prior years) would have to be moved to different agencies and would continue functioning regardless of the letterhead changes required. The student loan program is projected, between 2024 and 2034, to issue additional student loans totaling $1.1 trillion, and expects $221 billion of that to be losses on those loans from students that do not pay them back.

The Ed identifies for itself four primary functions:

1. Establishing policies on federal financial aid for education as well as distributing and monitoring those funds.

2. Collecting data and disseminating research on America’s schools.

3. Prohibiting discrimination and ensuring equal access to education.

4. Focusing national attention on key issues in education and making recommendations for educational reform.

The Ed has, by any educational measure, has had no positive effect on student learning and achievement since its promotion to cabinet status. If you believe that student test scores on standardized tests are indicative of student learning, then it may be noted that those scores for US students have fallen below Asian and UK students. It may be that abolishing The Ed and allowing more state-by-state control of the educational process would allow the return of innovative teaching to our classrooms as opposed to the scripted requirements teachers are currently expected to follow whose primary goal is “improving standardized test scores.” It may also be that narrowing the curricula with the single goal of raising test scores has been counterproductive when it comes to teaching and learning. In 2024, for example, over 65% of high school graduates have “underdeveloped” reading skills, and 1 out of every 6 students drop out of school each year. Over 30% of all 3rd graders and 40% of all 4th graders are “below basic” in reading nationwide, and the single positive data point for standardized test scores is that they are highly effective in highlighting the socio-economic status of the families of students taking the tests (aka the zip code effect). It’s also important to note that Americans who have earned at least a bachelor’s degree who were recognized as proficient readers in 1992 (38%) dropped about 10 points by 2003, and in 2024 over 60% of college students say they struggle with reading comprehension of academic texts.

The achievement gap in education - the persistent gap in academic performance and educational attainment at every educational level between groups based primarily on student ethnicity and family income, shows up in standardized test scores, dropout rates, promotion rates, college acceptance rates and AP and honors course selection rates. Data has shown that the achievement gaps have not grown over the past 50 years, but neither have they decreased. That would suggest that whatever national policies or solutions proposed and implemented over the last half century have failed to solve any of the issues they were designed to address. It would seem that centralized educational policies have failed to do what they were designed to do after 5 decades of trying. Perhaps it’s time to listen to someone else for a while. My suggestion would be teachers with 25 years or more of successful teaching experience.

The US Department of Education received $268 billion in 2024. That figure is only 4% of all Federal spending. There were 4,144 employees in that same year, and the average salary of $112,164 is 56.3% higher than the national average for government employees and 45.5% higher than other federal agencies. The Ed allocated $682 million for 2024 employee compensation and benefits, and 2,522 of those employees made over $100,000 per year. The average teacher salary in Georgia is $64,461 per year. Perhaps some of the “experts” at The Ed could find employment in real classrooms and discover what real teaching really means. That would also be $682 million tax dollars saved that might be spent in a more effective manner.

The National Student Lunch Program operates under the auspices of the US Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service and not The Ed. Regardless of changes in The Ed, the school lunch program nationwide will continue to operate. That doesn’t mean changes are needed, just that The Ed has never been the one to make them.

Another rather alarming statistic is the growth nationwide of the number of district administrators over the last 20 years. Many state and local educational leaders often make the case that a significant number of those additional administrators are needed to keep up with increased paperwork demands from The Ed.

A 2019 report from the South Carolina Department of Education showed that 70 percent of teachers in that state believed that the amount of paperwork they are required to complete prevented them from effectively facilitating student learning. With the rather dramatic increase in the number of district administrators nationwide, I would suggest there is no real reason for teachers being assigned paperwork to that degree beyond bureaucratic inefficiency caused by an increased number of administrators making unnecessary and often conflicting decisions at the federal, state and local level. I might also point out there is no cogent educational justification for adding administrative positions to this degree at any educational level while teachers in elementary and secondary grades have classes of 25-30 students. It is important to remember there is an inversely proportional relationship between contact hours with children and quality and/or effectiveness of decisions made about education. It is also important to remember that the single focus of all bureaucracies is to grow themselves. The Ed appears to do that extremely well, and, in fact, have turned that function into an art form.

Another criticism of The Ed has been its use of federal money as a carrot to “encourage” adoption of national educational standards under the auspices of Common Core. If states chose not to implement the CC standards, they faced the loss of all federal funds for educational purposes. The Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind programs followed similar scenarios. These types of educational blackmail were blatantly unconstitutional and counterproductive, and amounted to throwing large amounts of money at states in abortive attempts to legislate excellence in education on a national level. Since its inception 45 years ago, The Ed has seen student achievement levels either flat or declining, and the billions of dollars spent on “improvements” have produced zero return on each and every massive, taxpayer funded financial investment. If The Ed were a stock, you would have sold it long ago and the remaining stockholders would have fired the CEO.

Another advantage for US taxpayers with the closure of The Ed might be the transfer of the student loan program to the private sector and allow the free market to determine interest rates, qualification procedures, loan amounts and payback options without Presidential or Congressional meddling. Taxpayers are currently liable for the irresponsible lending practices of the Biden-Harris administration, and 42.7 million borrowers owe more than $1.6 trillion in student debt. Additionally, more than 5 million borrowers have made NO payments for over 1 year, and many for over 7 years. In the next several months over 25% of all student loan borrowers will be in default leaving taxpayers on the hook. Only 38% of student loan borrowers are in repayment and current on their student loan obligations.

States currently spend over $1.7 billion each year on standardized testing, and another $669 million on standardized assessments for elementary students, all due to requirements from The Ed. That works out to $34-69 per student nationwide. The elimination of standardized testing other than for diagnostic purposes would mean those funds would be available to hire thousands of new teachers, improve teacher salaries or improve classroom conditions in public schools in every state. Imagine English, math, science and social studies teachers or elementary grades in public schools with no more than 18- 20 students per class. Improving those numbers alone would make an enormous difference in teacher frustration and burnout and in student academic achievement in public schools. Research tells us that the single most effective predictor of student success in education are classroom teacher grades. In fact, students’ high school grade point average is the “strongest predictor of four-year college outcomes for all academic disciplines and campuses…and has less adverse impact than standardized tests on disadvantaged and…minority students.” Imagine that.

Centralization of the US educational system has proven to be both unrealistic and enormously expensive, and once again shown that paper requirements and a one size fits all standardization will not transfer effectively to real life education. With the elimination of The Ed, the massive bureaucracy it has created will no longer impede the individualization necessary for student growth, learning and achievement. States can create and implement their own educational standards that specifically fit the needs of their respective student populations much better than a centralized, bloated organization thousands of miles away. State education departments would have the ability to focus on the specific educational needs of their people, especially in vocational and career tech programs without the insanity of insisting that “every child is college material.” Allowing teachers the freedom to use their experiences and knowledge to determine what works best for the individual students in their classrooms would in itself generate an educational revolution in America. It would also rejuvenate the number of prospective teachers to replace those that have retired or quit in frustration. Another benefit would be the end of the “blame the teacher” era and go a long way toward restoring the dignity and respect of the teaching profession. We would do well to remember and reinforce the belief that teachers are the solution to educational issues and not the problem.

Local control of public education in America has an extensive history. There are over 13,000 school districts nationwide, and each state has the authority to hire and fire teachers and adopt their own curriculum. Each state, in accordance with the Constitutional directive stating “anything not explicitly named as a power of the federal government is given to the states,” has its own Department of Education. “But wait a minute” you might exclaim, “what about NCLB, Common Core and RttT and standardized testing requirements?” You would be correct in assuming that all are blatantly illegal. Offering financial incentives and access to federal funds to systems that adopted a national curriculum and educational guidelines and punishments and threatening the loss of federal funding for schools that failed to follow these directives, The Ed changed the focus of public education system from students learning how to learn to learning how to pass an ever-growing series of standardized tests. Congress, with the exception of jurisdiction over the DC area and awarding federal powers to prohibit discrimination in schooling by the states, has absolutely zero authority over education authorized by the Constitution. The founders of our country gave the Federal government no educational powers precisely because they knew that no national government can effectively govern education without inserting political bias into their respective versions of enforcement. That means, of course, that every federal educational program, including the department itself, is unconstitutional and has no legal basis for existence. Legality, in reality, seems to have little if any sway on Congressional actions public or private.

You might also take note that since the 1965 passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act all the way through NCLB, Common Core and RttT, inflation adjusted federal education per pupil spending has risen more than 185% but academic performance, especially since the COVID school closures, has regressed significantly.

It does seem that those whose vocation is reliant upon government dominated education, including the testing companies, are both motivated and organized in educational politics. It seems that The Ed is highly effective in providing teacher unions, college lobbyists, testing lobbyists and politicians invested in the federal control of public education with a gigantic fortress that demands accountability for everyone else in public education while allowing none for those in control of its operations.

Any good teacher can tell you that education never, never, ever works from the 25,000-foot level, and that the primary requirement for teaching students is individualized education provided on a frequent basis in person by a skilled and dedicated teacher. Want to know who The Ed doesn’t hire and never consults? Surprise! It’s teachers! All the noise and protests and confusion about how important The Ed has become to American education is simply a smoke screen to cover up what never should have been there in the first place - federal intrusion in what is clearly defined by the Constitution as a process best run by individual states. The Ed has now become just like every other federal bureaucracy. Need more proof? Name one federal program of any type at any location that you would consider a model of efficacy and efficiency and a worthy cause for your tax dollars. I’ll wait.

It’s almost as if The Ed, underneath all the publicity and lip service about their contributions to student success and educational improvement, have been complicit in an intentional and concerted effort to dumb down the US population over time. Even if it’s not intentional, that’s pretty much the result by any measure. What an insidious thought, especially if it’s true. That puts a whole new spin on the “Why Johnny Can’t Read” argument if the real answer is “we would really rather he didn’t, because a stupid populace is easier to control.” Undoubtedly an insidious and cynical thought, but remember that communists read Orwell, too, but with admiration.