Department Of Education
Why Do We Have One?
President Elect Trump has said that he wants to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, and I have to admit it's an appealing idea. Certainly the financial situation of the United States would be improved by eliminating it's 2024 budget of $238.04 billion dollars. (Why the 0.04?)
There are about 54.6 million kindergarten through 12 students in the U.S., and around 18 million in college and graduate school. 238 billion divided by 73 million gives a rough estimate of $3,260 per student. Where is the money going, and why are we then paying property taxes?
The issue is in two parts. In the Department of Education constitutional, and is it worth having if it is.
The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution reads as follows:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
This seems to say that the Federal Government should do what the Federal Government should do, and the states should do what the states should do. The worry is that too much power will coalesce in the Federal Government, leading to rule by a few elites. This would undermine the distributed power setup of the Constitution.
Why is there a Federal Department of Education? The Constitution does not empower the Federal Government in that area, and somehow all of the states managed to produce school systems, complete with state universities, not to mention private schools and colleges, in abundance. (No one would quibble over the military academies, national defense being a federal prerogative.) Why would the Federal Government even want to? They would want to so as to increase their influence by molding the young into whatever ways of thinking that is fashionable among the inside the beltway class at the time. (They seem to have a desire to change the next generation of children into homosexual communists.) How would they get around the proscription? They would send matching funds to educational institutions who adopted their policies. Translation, they take our money and give part of it back if we do what they say. What if the American People disapprove? They would label all such persons as radical right wing extremists. After all, who else would not want to see power concentrated in the hands of a tight knit minority?
A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.
Senator Everett Dirksen
In fact Trump wants to considerably downsize the federal bureaucracy in general, which might mitigate some of our financial difficulties. After all the 2024 federal budget was 6 ¾ trillion dollars, and eliminating 1.83 trillion would get rid of the expenses beyond revenue. (But why stop there?) Needless to say, those making their livings in said bureaucracy are less than enthused.
2024 Budget of the United States federal government[1]
Total revenue
$4.919 trillion (actual)[1] 17.1% of GDP[1]
Total expenditures
$6.752 trillion (actual)[1] 23.4% of GDP[1]
$1.833 trillion (actual)[1]
6.4% of GDP[1]
The above table is from Wikipedia. The link is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_federal_budget
I doubt that the U.S. populace is better educated now than it would be if we had no Department of Education. After all, most all of our colleges and universities were in existence in 1980, and I doubt that anything is being done that could not be done by the states.
From the left leaning Wikipedia:
The United States Department of Education is a cabinet-level department of the United States government. It began operating on May 4, 1980, having been created after the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was split into the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services by the Department of Education Organization Act, which President Jimmy Carter signed into law on October 17, 1979.[3][4]
Unlike the systems of many other countries, education in the United States is organized as a sub-national level by each of the 50 states. Under the 10th Amendment, the federal government and Department of Education are not involved in determining curricula or educational standards or establishing schools or colleges.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Education
As the Wikipedia article said, the Tenth Amendment does not allow the Federal Government to set curricula in schools, that is a state function, but I think only the terminally naive don't believe that the Federal Government has no interest in affecting curricula through back door means and is not doing so. The question is not only is it's existence constitutional, but is it doing more harm than good?
It does not seem to me that it's existence is constitutional, it's just a way of extending federal power at our expense.
Again, from the Wikipedia article:
The department identifies four key functions:[6]
Establishing policies on federal financial aid for education and distributing as well as monitoring those funds.
Collecting data on America's schools and disseminating research.
Focusing national attention on key educational issues.
Prohibiting discrimination and ensuring equal access to education.
Despite the department's explaining that they are not violating the Tenth Amendment by performing functions reserved to the states, a look at the budget breakdown makes one suspicious.
https://www.ed.gov/sites/ed/files/about/overview/budget/budget24/summary/24summary.pdf
It's full of wonderful sounding things that maybe they believe will make the country better, but you are hard pressed to see anything that cannot be done by your state if they are so inclined, and never is there a thought of what else might be done with the money.
Consider this tidbit from the budget report, page 11 if you want to look it up:
INCREASES SUPPORT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT
The Budget provides $178 million to the Department’s Office for Civil Rights, a 27 percent increase compared to the fiscal year 2023 enacted level. This additional funding would ensure that the Department of Education has the capacity to protect equal access to education through the enforcement of civil rights laws, such as Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972
From the National Center for Educational Statistics:
https://nces.ed.gov/naal/lit_history.asp
This link shows that the percentage of persons 14 years old and over who were illiterate (unable to read or write in any language) improved steadily from 1870 until 1979, when it stood at 0.6%, or six out of every thousand. So up until 1979 we see a general improvement in literacy.
"But the basic difficulty still remains: It is the expansion of Federal power, about which I wish to express my alarm. How easily we embrace such business." ~ Senator Everett Dirksen
From this Wikipedia article, results if US literacy study in 2019
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States
National Assessment of Educational Progress
Main article link: NAEP
“In the United States, the National Assessment of Educational Progress or NAEP ("The Nation's Report Card") is the national assessment of what students know and can do in various subjects. Four of these subjects—reading, writing, mathematics and science—are assessed most frequently and reported at the state and district level, usually for grades 4 and 8.[40]
In 2019, with respect to the reading skills of the nation's grade-four public school students, 34% performed at or above the Proficient level (solid academic performance) and 65% performed at or above the Basic level (partial mastery of the proficient level skills). It doesn't look to my untutored self that literacy has improved since the founding of the Department of Education.”
Stay Brave, Stay Free
While a modern sophisticated society requires intelligent, moral, and open-minded people to function, the USA is sadly lacking in people possessing those qualities. In fact, our Department of Education has led us to a black hole of despair where we doubt reality and actively deny God. We have a Department of Education that has not only failed in its mission, but it has also perverted education and turned the USA into the USSA.
A minimum of math and English knowledge should be the basic goal of a secondary education and those unable to function as adults in a modern world should be made to continue in school until they are competent (unless, of course, they are mentally retarded).
As a CPS Worker, I saw how Headstart was nothing more or less than a government babysitter assigned to find and change every unusual child or family that did not fit the mold.
David, you made the case. Education is clearly as reserved power. If the existence of the Department of education is challenged in court, it has to be declared unconstitutional. DOGE needs to get on that. Test scores are dismal year after year. States like California will continue failed policies like "whole language," instead of phonics, with or without the DOE. Might as well save a big chunk of money.