J.D. Tuccille: U.S. Department of Education should be abolished

National Post

2 days ago

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In 2017, an article in the Harvard Graduate School of Education's Ed. magazine noted that, 'The federal government uses a complex system of funding mechanisms, policy directives and the soft but considerable power of the presidential bully pulpit to shape what, how and where students learn.'
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In fact, state and local educators, largely linked by the culture and ideology that permeates teachers' unions and the federal Department of Education, are usually more than happy to have their arms twisted into accepting the latest trends favoured by Washington. The result is less variety and experimentation among schools that are locally operated but don't want to offend the feds. Maybe that would be tolerable if such standardization produced well-educated kids, but it doesn't.
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In January, the Department of Education announced the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) — often called 'the nation's report card' — by admitting they 'reveal a heartbreaking reality for American students and confirm our worst fears: not only did most students not recover from pandemic-related learning loss, but those students who were the most behind and needed the most support have fallen even further behind.'
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Inefficient and unresponsive public schools aren't a new thing — Americans have complained about them for decades. But they're now doing more than complaining — they're heading for the exits in favour of alternatives, such as private schools, publicly funded but privately run charter schools, co-operative learning pods, micro-schools and various forms of homeschooling.
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Since the COVID-19 pandemic, while traditional public schools saw enrolment decline by over a million students, private schools, which educate nine per cent of combined public and private students, picked up enrolment, many paying tuition with the help of tax credits and education savings accounts explicitly established to support school choice. At the same time, charter schools increased enrolment by 400,000 and now educate roughly seven per cent of all students.
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Homeschooling is harder to measure since not all states track those who choose DIY education, but the Johns Hopkins University Homeschool Hub estimates that six per cent of students are educated through various homeschooling approaches and that, 'The number of home-schooled students is going up as the total number of U.S. students in going down.' Culture wars and battles over politicized classrooms — exemplified in those competing California and Texas textbooks — only serve to accelerate the exodus.
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If the U.S. Department of Education is doing anything, it's presiding over a decline in public education that Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Cara Fitzpatrick dramatically overstates in her 2023 book, ' The Death of Public Schools.' The public schools aren't dead, but they're mortally wounded and shedding support after having been rendered repulsive by their own advocates.
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In March, President Trump ordered Education Secretary Linda McMahon to 'take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the states and local communities.' He's since laid off almost half the department's workforce — a move boosted this week when the U.S. Supreme Court eased the way for mass firings of federal workers.
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