Trump education department executive order targets a bureaucracy with no purpose

Yahoo

30-03-2025

The U.S. Department of Education is swamp politics at its finest: create a bureaucracy without a clear purpose, let it grow unchecked, and then stir up panic at the suggestion of reining it in.
What began as a political bribe by President Jimmy Carter has ballooned into a federal agency meddling in decisions best left to states and local communities.
President Donald Trump can't end the federal education bureaucracy on his own, so Democrats and Republicans in Congress should help him.
The department spent the last four decades inflating its budget and broadening its authority − without ever truly justifying its existence.
While states and communities invest 90% of the money in public education and shoulder nearly all the responsibility, the Department of Education lingers in the background, writing rules, tying strings, and expanding its reach in classrooms from Tennessee to California.
Let's be clear about the 'need' for a federal education bureau.
President Jimmy Carter signed the Department of Education Organization Act in 1979 in exchange for the National Education Association's (NEA) first ever presidential endorsement ahead of the 1980 election.
While President Ronald Reagan absolutely decimated Carter, the NEA secured its top priority and permanently aligned itself with the Democratic Party. Since Carter, the NEA has never endorsed a Republican for president.
But for Carter's unpopularity and the NEA's bargain, the Department of Education wouldn't exist. It's understandable that Republicans might question its necessity.
Ironically, Carter's comments in creating the Department of Education explain why it isn't necessary:
"Primary responsibility for education should rest with those states, localities, and private institutions that have made our Nation's educational system the best in the world….but the Federal Government has for too long failed to play its own supporting role in education….Instead of setting a strong administrative model, the Federal structure has contributed to bureaucratic buck passing."
Carter knew exactly where education governance belonged, but he reasoned that the most effective way of dealing with Washington's bureaucratic inefficiency was creating a new federal agency.
Opinion: Trump is abusing his power. Is this a 'constitutional crisis' or something more? |
Since then, the department has grown into a sprawling apparatus that accounted for nearly $250 billion in federal spending in fiscal year 2024. The majority of those dollars are formula grants and student loans that simply don't require a bloated federal bureaucracy to administer. The agency uses roughly $80 billion in discretionary funding to run its various functions.
That may sound like a lot of money, but the federal government only provides about 10% of all K-12 education funding in the United States. The rest comes from state and local governments, which are far better positioned to address the unique needs of their communities.
That relatively small contribution comes with an outsized influence. From the arcane requirements of No Child Left Behind to the slippery tentacles of Common Core, the Department of Education has repeatedly leveraged its checkbook to set education policy across the country.
Opinion: As student performance in most other states fell, here's how Tennessee improved
Reagan campaigned on dismantling the department, calling it 'a bureaucratic boondoggle.'
While Reagan ultimately failed to achieve his goal, the argument that education is best handled locally resonates as strongly today as it did in the 1980s.
Whether Democrat or Republican, the National Assessment of Education Progress, the nation's own report card, indicates that we've spent billions of dollars for academic results that are largely flat.
Enter Trump.
On March 20, the president signed an executive order attempting to close the Department of Education 'to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.'
The first step to actually shuttering a federal bureaucracy is to begin shutting it down. While Trump certainly could have lobbied Congress to initiate the process, the House and Senate have proven largely incapable of doing just about anything.
So he took action.
Make no mistake: the problems in American education are complex and multifaceted. But those problems will not be solved by another edict from the marble halls of Washington. Instead, it will require empowering local educators, engaging parents, and trusting communities to make decisions for their own children. We can do that effectively while moving the Department of Education's useful and legitimate functions to other agencies.
The Department of Defense should compensate school districts which encompass military bases because the federal government does not pay property tax.
Opinion: Take a chainsaw to the federal government. It's inelegant but might just work.
Given America's negative history with Native Americans and our existing treaty obligations, the Department of the Interior should absolutely assist with educational support on tribal lands. The federal government should also prevent unconstitutional discrimination by state and local governments, a function properly housed within the Department of Justice.
The Trump administration plans to move the federal student loan portfolio to the U.S. Small Business Administration within the Department of Commerce. Is there a better place to house the debts of students as they pursue gainful employment?
The U.S. Department of Education has long been a bureaucracy in search of a purpose − content to exist, expand, and entangle itself in matters better handled at the statehouse than the Capitol.
President Trump's executive order was a reminder that the American experiment was built on the idea that government functions best when it is closest to the people it serves.
Perhaps it's time we leave education to those who know our students best.
USA TODAY Network Tennessee Columnist Cameron Smith is a Memphis-born, Brentwood-raised recovering political attorney raising four boys in Nolensville, Tenn., with his particularly patient wife, Justine. Direct outrage or agreement to [e-mail] or @DCameronSmith on Twitter. Agree or disagree? Send a letter to the editor to [e-mail].
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: U.S. Department of Education should never been created | Opinion