Linda McMahon says the Ed Department has failed students. Is it true? Here's what the data show.

Boston Globe

07-04-2025

The department has its problems — and has been strikingly ineffective over the last decade — but even conservative critics grant that some of its roles have had value, including testing, data collection, and research.
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Other researchers argue its value goes much further, including by directing money to schools with needy students; by providing technical support and grants for innovation; and by offering a 'bully pulpit' to lead national education trends.
Here's what to know:
Has achievement declined?
It's not true that scores have consistently languished under the Education Department. Until about 2015, scores and other achievement measures mostly rose.
The federal government's longest-running nationally representative student assessment began in the 1970s and showed student achievement gradually but consistently rising until the 2010s. College enrollment rates followed a similar trend, and high school graduation rates have risen even more consistently, including through the pandemic.
'People don't know we've improved so much,' said Tulane education professor Douglas Harris.
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Data and research
The Department's work with the most widespread approval is research and data collection, including the
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McMahon cited the NAEP to show the department has failed, noted Harris.
'They're using the evidence that the department itself is creating against the department,' Harris said.
Republicans have pushed other policies backed by
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But Frederick Hess, the chairman of the American Enterprise Institute's Conservative Education Reform Network, argued that while the data collection is critical, only a small portion of education research is helpful.
'The vast sea of it [is] shot through with ideology, incoherent or indefensible methodologies, and agendas dressed in the garb of science,' Hess said.
Much of the research Hess criticizes is not directly federally funded, but he argued it's indirectly supported by other IES grants.
Federal funding
Hess also questioned the value of Title I and IDEA, federal funds for
low-income students and students with disabilities, which some conservatives want to
involved.
'While the dollars are certainly helpful, they may be more negative than not,' Hess said. 'We built a 60-year-old oversight apparatus that is incredibly clunky and intrusive.'
The money is also quite limited — a few percent of Massachusetts spending — and there is even a
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'We know that money matters for education,' said Matt Kraft, an education professor at Brown University who served on President Biden's Council of Economic Advisors. 'How much worse would things have been during the great recession or during the pandemic if we hadn't had federal dollars flowing?'
Kraft also praised more targeted federal investments like competitive grant programs, which have helped address teacher shortages, an area he studies.
The bully pulpit
Multiple experts raised the 'bully pulpit,' the federal government's ability to drive the conversation, as a key positive contribution. Harris, of Tulane, pointed to 'A Nation at Risk,' a landmark report on education commissioned under President Ronald Reagan.
'That really triggered the standards and accountability movement,' Harris said.
requiring more math classes, increasing coursework completed by Black students and their
future earnings.
Sandy Kress, a key architect of No Child Left Behind as an adviser to President George W. Bush, said
the federal government's role in pushing for positive change predates the Education Department's 1979 formation. During the Civil Rights Era, Title I and school desegregation efforts also pushed state and local governments to focus on Black and low-income students, with positive effects.
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'I'm not trying to say it evened things up, but it certainly brought greater fairness, greater equity to the use of resources,' Kress said.
School accountability
Probably the most controversial federal role is Kress's life's work — school accountability. The 2001 No Child Left Behind Act required states to regularly test all students and hold schools and districts accountable for outcomes.
No Child Left Behind seems to have driven significant
The expansive testing system the bill helped create proved very unpopular, as parents and educators raised concerns over what they saw as an inundation of testing, and the accountability requirements were watered down under Obama, with Republican Senator Lamar Alexander leading the charge.
'If the goal is to reduce the federal role, that already happened,' said Mike Petrilli, president of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute. 'Give credit to Barack Obama and Lamar Alexander.'
Civil rights and special education oversight
The federal Office for Civil Rights was one of the hardest-hit parts of the department in
'We must do much better to improve special education in this country,' said Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education. 'But it's really, really important that the rights of students who participate in those programs are protected, and the feds play a really important role in that.'
Petrilli agreed that 'it's important to have an agency that can respond to complaints,' although he said both parties have 'weaponized' the civil rights arm for culture war battles.
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What doesn't work?
All the experts agreed the department has problems and has been ineffective in halting achievement declines over the last decade.
'There's no doubt that test score declines ... are a real blinking red emergency light,' Kraft said. 'It would be misguided to assume, however, that these challenges and declines are directly attributable to an inefficient or ineffective Department of Education.'
Kress just hoped
the last decade's trajectory is not permanent.
'Was 2013 the peak of achievement in American history?' he wondered. 'That's a pretty sorry thing to think about.'
Christopher Huffaker can be reached at