Former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos made a few headlines over the weekend after saying the federal Department of Education “should not exist.” Hear, hear. We agree, but we wish she had said that sooner.
The federal Department of Education needs to go so that states, localities, and parents can have a larger role in education. Unelected bureaucrats in D.C. should not be writing education policies for all.
Our country did not have a cabinet level Department of Education until 1980. Prior to that, federal money was sent to states for education from executive level offices. After its creation, we have not seen an increase in nationwide school performance. The United States has lost ground in education to other industrialized democracies for decades. More centralized control has not worked for education.
Education is best administered at the local level, by a school board elected and accountable to the parents they represent. Never mind the teachers’ unions, they represent the teachers, not the students, and a federal department is a lot like a union. DeVos mentioned how career staffers were always a problem when she was Edu Secretary. Well, she could’ve cleaned house and we wish she had.
Possibly the biggest failure of the Trump presidency was not rolling back executive power (and codifying any rollbacks). Conservative Republicans could’ve been driven by the principle of limiting the size and scope of the federal government, and Democrats could’ve joined them simply out of their hatred of Trump and the result would’ve been a smaller federal government.
If that had been the case, then the Department of Education could have ended under DeVos. Rep. Thomas Massie submits a one page bill each session that calls for the Dept. of Edu to be abolished. With the necessary legislation in place, a bipartisan desire to rollback executive power, and the right secretary in charge of leading the effort, then the Department of Education could’ve/should’ve/would’ve been gone by now.
So yeah, we don’t think the federal Department of Education should not exist either and we’re a little upset that Ms. DeVos just arrived at that same conclusion.
