Multiple Republican presidential candidates made it clear at this week’s debate that the Department of Education is in danger if they are elected.
“Let’s shut down the head of the snake, the Department of Education,” Vivek Ramaswamy said. “Take that $80 billion, put it in the hands of parents across this country.”
Conservatives see the department, which has more than 4,400 employees and in its current form dates back to 1979 after first being established in 1867, as a prime example of Washington’s meddling in Americans’ lives. The time has come to “shut down the Federal Department of Education,” former Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday.
But what would it mean to actually shutter the massive agency?
How could the department be eliminated?
Killing the Department of Education (DOE) would be easier said than done.
Conservatives have said since the creation of the department they want to get rid of it. From President Ronald Reagan and his Education secretary to President Trump and his own, Republicans have decried the department’s existence but failed to abolish it.
That is because the decision to do so is not only up to the president and would have to go through Congress.
“There would have to be some legislation to specifically outline this, but I do think it would need to have the support of the executive branch and, obviously, this is a Cabinet-level agency, so I think having the president — would have to take a leadership role and help to make sure that the proposal is carefully crafted,” said Jonathan Butcher, the Will Skillman senior research fellow in education policy at The Heritage Foundation, which supports nixing the DOE.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) proposed such legislation in 2021 and reintroduced it earlier this year.
“Unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., should not be in charge of our children’s intellectual and moral development,” Massie said two years ago. “States and local communities are best positioned to shape curricula that meet the needs of their students. Schools should be accountable. Parents have the right to choose the most appropriate educational opportunity for their children, including home school, public school or private school.”
DOE did not respond to The Hill’s request for comment.
DOE’s duties would be absorbed by other federal agencies
DOE has an enormous number of responsibilities, including handling student loans, investigating complaints against schools and tracking education progress across the country.
None of the 2024 candidates during Wednesday’s debate detailed how they would handle eliminating it, but conservatives have longed to see many of its tasks either completely eliminated or absorbed into other departments.
“For example, the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Education. I think that any duplicate responsibilities that it shares with the Department of Justice should be eliminated, and then the rest of that office should go to the Department of Justice,” Butcher said.
Take $80 billion, divide by the number of households in US with children ~ 30 million. That’s about $2700. Anyone who’s a parent knows that doesn’t go far at all in terms of education expenses. Good luck privatizing education and funding it out pocket for $3k/yr. Complete idiots.
Generous of you to assume they'd redirect that money to anyone else but themselves and their cronies.
That's kinda the point. They actively want the poors to have to send their kids to the 'budget' schools. The ones that charge exactly $2700 / yr / student. Broken computers, empty libraries, overworked and severely underpaid teachers, no extra curriculars.
Meanwhile, the ~~oligarchs~~ rich people can send their kids to the schools that cost more, teaches their kids how to be shitty to the proletariat, and has a pipeline directly into colleges.
The whole point of this venture is to siphon even yet more money from the poor into the hands of the rich, meanwhile depriving those same poor of a worthwhile education and giving the rich an even greater advantage.
We spend like 15k/student right now.
I don't think they're capable of reforming education, but it's not the worst idea.
would make sense with the move to deregulate child labor laws in the usual states. get them littles back in the coal mines!
Aren’t schools funded by county property tax and not the DOE?
yeah I thought the dept of edumcation was administrative overhead
Depends on the state, but finding isn't really the issue here. It's a move to a voucher system.
The idea that they are pushing is to privatize the entire education system. Privatization has been a wet dream for Republicans for many years now, and not just in education. It would further corporatize the country and allow for more money that was once 'the people's' to be siphoned into private pockets.
So the state gives money to families with children. Those families send their kids to a private school and give that money (plus probably a lot more) to that private school. Public money flowing into private hands. Add to that deregulation of the industry - no standard tests or textbooks. Education will be chaos.