Why Is There a Federal Education Department?

Despite the fearmongering from teachers unions, it's largely useless.

I have a conflict.

I don't much like Linda McMahon, President Donald Trump's new education secretary. I sued her once.

She and her sleazy husband, Vince, owned a circus called World Wrestling Entertainment.

When I did a silly ABC news video on how the matches are staged, one of their 280-pound actors beat me up. A wrestler said Vince told him to do it.

But now, I like what Linda's doing!

As education secretary, she's telling students to pay back their loans, saying, "There's no such thing as loan forgiveness. It just gets transferred to someone else. That's just not fair!"

It's not. Yet students got used to not paying. Today, most don't pay their loans back.

The Biden administration encouraged that. Even after the Supreme Court struck down his student loan forgiveness program, Biden tweeted, "They didn't stop me," and kept canceling student debt.

But why should college students, who are, on average, richer than other Americans, get free money? Truck drivers don't get loan forgiveness for buying their trucks.

Government-backed student loans are welfare for the better off.

Colleges abused the handouts by raising tuition about three times faster than the rate of inflation.

Students and parents rarely complained, or even asked, "Why is tuition (at some schools) $60,000!?" They didn't push back because taxpayers pay so much of the bill.

Colleges chase that taxpayer money by offering kids ridiculous perks like the "jungle retreat" and "in-house day spa" at the University of Missouri.

A university official even bragged to my producer, "It used to be 'reading, writing, and arithmetic. We're now the fourth 'R'—recreation."

Other schools chase taxpayer money by offering courses like surfing (UC Santa Barbara), Lady Gaga (University of South Carolina), zombies (Columbia College Chicago), taco literacy (University of Kentucky), and how to watch TV (Montclair State University).

Fun!

But why should taxpayers pay for that!?

It raises a more basic question: Why is there a federal Department of Education?

There shouldn't be. It's largely useless. More people realize that today.

During Trump's last term, I asked his first education secretary, Betsy DeVos, if she would abolish the department.

"No," she replied. "There are important roles to play to ensure students are not discriminated against."

How times have changed.

In The Free Press, she writes, "Shut down the department….[It] no longer needs to exist."

Trump says he wants to shut it, but Congress probably won't give him the votes, and teachers unions fight to keep the federal money flowing, shouting that closing the department "will destroy families, communities, and students!"

Gullible media agree. A CBS news anchor claims, "The department helps 26 million kids in poverty and 7.5 million kids with disabilities."

"It's not doing any of those things," says education policy researcher Corey DeAngelis in my new video. "The department was created with the express purpose to close achievement gaps and improve student outcomes….It hasn't done either!"

In fact, outcomes got worse.

Despite more than $3 trillion spent by the department, test scores are stagnant.

Reading scores fell.

Still, unions hold demonstrations, claiming that America needs the department.

"Our students, our babies, are depending on us!" shouts teachers union president Becky Pringle.

"They're not your kids, Becky!" responds DeAngelis. "They're the parents' children. Becky is just worried about her gravy train coming to an end."

Pringle does make almost half a million dollars a year. The head of the other big teachers union, Randi Weingarten, makes even more.

As I write this, Trump has fired 1,000 Education Department workers.

"They had to be doing something," I suggest to DeAngelis.

"No!" he replies. "They weren't! They were pushing paper. Taking six-figure salaries.

That's why things haven't really changed much since half the department's gone."

Maybe those laid-off Education Department workers will find something more useful to do.

Students and parents won't miss them. Funds will be freed to give kids more choices.

"It's time to set the children free," says DeAngelis. "We should all be free from the clutches of the teachers unions."

COPYRIGHT 2025 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.

Comments

[Longtobefree]

"Why is there a federal Department of Education?"
To fund leftists.

Next question?

[sarcasmic]

Because fuck you. That's why.

[MollyGodiva]

The ED provides grants to lower income schools, administers the student loan program, collects data, enforces civil rights law in regards to education, and plays a major roll in making sure disabled students get an education.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

"The ED provides grants to lower income schools, administers the student loan program, collects data, enforces civil rights law in regards to education, and plays a major roll in making sure disabled students get an education."

None of which, by any measure, helps the kids. It keeps lefty shits like you drooling and allows swamp scum to rake off some money, but other than that, it's totally worthless.
Fuck off and die, asshole.

[sarcasmic]

None of those things should be federal. There's nothing about education in the Constitution. And as far as student loans go, they are the reason the cost of college has outpaced inflation since the program began. Think about it. If your customers are given "free" money to buy your product, why wouldn't you raise prices accordingly? You'd be a fool not to.

[TJJ2000]

^THIS.......... Well Said again +100000000000000000.

[JFree]

There's nothing about education in the Constitution.

Indirectly there is - and that is exactly how federal responsibilities re education were handled before it became its own department.

The MAJOR explicit reason for a federal role in education is constitutional - "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress,... enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power" Article 1, Section 10, Clause 3.

That explicitly INCLUDES a role for Congress and EXCLUDES a role for President/executive. IF the states themselves desire some level of cooperation among themselves re education. Which they did in 1965 and which resulted in the Education Commission of the States - which all 50 states are part of and which is entirely constitutional.

That interstate compact was ignored (but not undermined) when Carter rolled up the then-existing federal depts dealing with education - Indian schools, DoD schools, civil rights, GI type loans, etc - into a single cabinet level point of contact. That certainly can create too much of a political bully pulpit for a Pres to run on 'education' issues. But in and of itself it is minor. Kind of like 'Homeland Security' consolidating existing functions into a single cabinet level department.

What is destructive is when the executive branch destroys the interstate compact 'competition'. Destroys the constitutional function in favor of a nonconstitutional function that the Prez can control via that politicized election bully pulpit. That is what Reagan did in 1981 when he created the National Commission on Excellence in Education which created the 1983 A Nation at Risk report. Which turned 'education' into a national security issue and specifically eliminated the ability of the ECS to deal with the issue it was then dealing with - educational testing - in favor of a privatized national approach. Eliminate the competition. Which obviously then immediately turned into a 'new' unconstitutional role for the federal department of education which soon required more funding for a new culture war.

[TJJ2000]

Talk about turning BS into Butter.

Holy Crap... Did you just pretend "enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State" congressional permission equates to a [Na]tional So[zi]alist Education Camps for Kids?

What other amazingly retarded assertions can you dream-up to write your own Commie Constitution?

[JFree]

I doubt you can read but the fact is that that interstate compact idea originated WITH the states. All 50 states. Here's the history of that on the ECS website - from 1965

There are many other things the Commission could study. The following is a list of some, to which many can be added and some deleted:
1. Financing of public education by local, state and national funds.
2. Preschool training – Project Head start.
3. Structure of local administration of schools.
4. How state departments of education can provide
more effective leadership.
5. Organization of state departments of education.
6. The problems of school districting.
7. The promise and limits of school consolidation.
8. Design, architecture and setting the role of
physical structure in education.
9. Special problems of the large city high school, the
rural high school and the suburban high school.
10. Teacher training and retraining.
11. Teacher selection and recruitment.
12. Teacher certification.
13. Teacher salaries.
14. Opportunities for teacher advancement.
15. The summer session – how can it be made
profitable?
16. Organization of the school day.
17. Adequacy of guidance services.
18. The curriculum; its breadth and depth.
19. The American high school and the Arts: Painting,
dance, music, drama.
20. Social studies, including American history.
21. Developing reading skills.
22. New techniques for instruction in English,
American literature and composition.
23. Adequacy of general education in the high school.
24. Evaluation of new techniques including T.V.,
programmed instruction and audio-visual aids
25. Slum schools.
26. Segregated schools.
27. The education of students of limited ability.
28. How to reach the underachievers.
29. The education of the disadvantaged.
30. The possibilities of the "gifted."
31. The reform of instructional methods and materials
including the new developments in foreign
languages, physics, chemistry, mathematics and
biology.
32. Vocational education and education for
employment immediately on leaving high school
related to society's needs.
33. On-the-job education programs.
34. Education beyond the high school; the junior
colleges; the comprehensive community colleges.
35. Institutions for technical training.
36. Role of business community in education –
cooperative technical schools.
37. Science and engineering, including inquiry into
supply and demand of those prepared for research
and the facilities available for training such
personnel.
38. Uniformity of standards for degrees beyond the
Masters' degrees.
39. Education in the professions – law, medicine, etc.
40. The promotion of research and scholarly
endeavors in all fields in our institutions of higher
education.
41. The role of the small liberal arts college.
42. The effect of the "publish or perish" dictum on
teaching abilities, in higher education.
43. How free academic freedom.
44. Aid to higher education – to the individual or the
institution?
45. The state's cost in producing an advanced degree
recipient in relation to its use of him
46. Education outside the school – the use of
indigenous settings.
47. State supported public kindergartens

This doesn't even include stuff like how to place relocating students into particular grades when they move from one state to another. This is NOT a federal issue. It absolutely is an interstate compact issue.

I fully expect 'libertarians' like you to be totally clueless that states and districts and individual schools might want to cooperate in improving their operations. Your ilk are stuck in a totally pathetic ideology of trying to find the Holy Scotland - via Munich or some other Godwin path.

[TJJ2000]

Congressional State-compacts permission =/= US Congressional Authority over ?__Fill-in-the-Blank__?.

You're not pointing to any grant of power in the US Constitution. UR corrupting and manipulating a State's Compact-Permission clause so you can fill-in whatever power you want to be there which doesn't exist.

[CE]

Who needs enumerated powers when you can just make stuff up as you go?

[Use the Schwartz]

"major roll"

Look how stupid you are.

[Bertram Guilfoyle]

Molly has a PHD (poor hungry dog).

[Zeb]

And states can't do that for some reason? What part of the constitution authorizes the department?

[JFree]

They can't do it on their own in splendid isolation. They themselves realized that. They themselves wanted to set up an agreement where they would share ideas, benchmarks, maybe program costs, etc - run by their own education people seconded to something independent of a particular state. That is precisely what an interstate compact is - and that REQUIRES an act of Congress to structure and oversee.

[Zeb]

OK. Congress just needs to permit it. Not take on funding and regulatory roles.

[JFree]

Certainly not regulatory or mandatory. Funding would likely become secondary since Congress would be overseeing the states themselves - not the executive - re any expenditures/accountability. Congress may not be capable of that oversight - esp not in DC.

[TJJ2000]

There's nothing about education in the Constitution.

People like you who want to CORRUPT, VOID, and DESTROY the Constitution with made-up cut and paste in what you want is the very reason this nation is being destroyed from within.

[MWAocdoc]

There is no evidence that public education benefits the public or improves democracy or the body politic in any measurable way. Someone shouted a slogan back in the mists of time and it persists unsupported to this very day. In fact, there is a great deal of evidence that public education selectively promotes socialism and other unsupported myths and undermines democracy and constitutionally limited government power. I believe that the more people who are passed out of primary public schools, the more people there are who vote for pie in the sky promises and then pretend that the system delivered on the promises; while very few of them remember any maths beyond simple arithmetic, any history or geography or have any critical reading or logic skills that would improve their quality as citizens. Education benefits some people who have a career in mind that requires actual education - in the broadest sense of the word - including trades and crafts skills that can be taught and trained; and professions such as engineering, maths, sciences, medicine and the law. There are certainly better ways to ensure adequate outcomes from those programs than throwing money at huge bureaucracies with massive infrastructures in support of football, school superintendents, campus life and janitorial services.

[Rossami]

As has already been said, none of that is a proper function for the federal government. As has not yet been said, the feds aren't even good at any of that. The statistical correlations between student performance and the growth of the ED show no improvement at all. We just continue to throw good money after bad.

[TJJ2000]

GUNS provide me... GUNS provide thee... GUNS do everything!!!! /s

What other tool did you think separated 'government' from any other entity on the planet?
You're a CRIMINAL mind in every sense of the word.

If YOU want what you say you want GO DO IT...
Stop using GUNS against the people to wave your own self-righteous sympathy flag.

[MollyGodiva]

AR FTW

[Homer Thompson]

this message is brought to you by randi weingarten and the american federation of teachers

[Strawmancasmic, Town Drunk and Gay for Booze]

Cool story Tony. Except none of it is needed. Let the states deal with education on their own.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

"Why Is There a Federal Education Department?"

To provide jobs and rent-seeking opportunities to swamp scum.

[TJJ2000]

^THIS.
D.C. the only State making 5-TIMES per capita that of any other state in the union yet produces absolutely nothing to speak of.

[Zeb]

Obviously it's because a thing can't exist unless there is a federal department for it. Why do you hate education?

[TJJ2000]

When anyone looks at 'Guns' as a way to get what they want (Gov-Guns) they are just lobbying to 'Gun' down their neighbors and commit 'armed-theft'.

GUNS don't make sh*t!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The con-artistry, the mind-manipulation, the cookery ... IT ***ALL*** resorts back to ignorance towards that basic FACT. The only Non-Criminal usage of 'Guns' is to ensure Individual Liberty and Justice for all. Pretending 'Guns' should make sh*t for you is literally turning the Hall of Justice into the Halls of CRIMINALS.

[TJJ2000]

Why???
the Department of Education Organization Act, by Abraham Ribicoff (D–CT), by the 96th Congress [D] House & [D] Senate, which President Jimmy Carter [D] signed into law on October 17, 1979.

Just another UN-Constitutional [D] trifecta [Na]tional So[zi]alist Empire building scam. That's why.

[Cyrano]

But I thought Trump shouldn't close the department of education (or any other department) no matter how evil it is without the consent of every Democrat in Congress and every federal judge. I don't think Stossel has been reading the other Reason writers.

[JasonT20]

Stossel continues to be a joke here. Whatever validity there is to his opinions is quickly overwhelmed by his sloppiness. The first claim I checked was about the surfing "courses" offered at UCSB (my alma mater). That is a recreation program with a fee, not a "course" for credit that would count toward a degree, and so it is not clear that it has a net cost to taxpayers. I did the archery class when I was there. Now, that was a long time ago, but it seems to be same now as it was then. Recreation classes charge a fee, but it is lower for students. Which is because they are available to the general public as well as students. Stossel does not explain how these programs cost the taxpayers anything. $199 to $279 for four 2-hr sessions with a minimum of 4 participants for the class to be held? I would think that the fee would cover any costs for the course, with nothing from taxpayers needed.

Besides, recreation is a good thing and well within a university's mission to educate. Physical activity is very important to being healthy, and educating people on activities that can help keep them fit is only a positive program, as I see it.

So, Stossel brings up something that is a positive side option among a university's offerings, with no evidence that it does cost taxpayers anything, as an example of waste at universities? Ridiculous.

[Strawmancasmic, Town Drunk and Gay for Booze]

Right, the one libertarian writer at Reason is a ‘joke’. You say that because you’re leftist filth and a democrat thrall.

Stossel is worth listening to, you’re not.

[JasonT20]

"No!" he replies. "They weren't! They were pushing paper. Taking six-figure salaries.

That's why things haven't really changed much since half the department's gone."

Stossel is taking Corey DeAngelis at his word here, so it is imporant to note who he is. Stossel calls him an "education policy researcher," which is correct. But where and how he does that "research" should be noted: He's only ever worked at conservative or libertarian think tanks (including the Reason Foundation, which Stossel doesn't disclose), after getting degrees in economics and then a Ph.D. in education policy from a department at Univ. of Arkansas started in 2005. A department that seems to exist to research promote school choice.

It is awfully easy for DeAngelis to claim that the fired ED employees were just paper pushers and that the department doesn't help students living in poverty or with disabilities if he isn't going to provide any support for that claim at all.

Stossel should think about one of the most important purposes of education - to develop critical thinking skills. But then, he never seems to employ those skills if he has them, so I am not holding my breath.

[Strawmancasmic, Town Drunk and Gay for Booze]

Critical thinking? That’s certainly escaped you. Or you wouldn’t be a democrat.

[JasonT20]

It escaped you for sure, as well, if so. All you've done is attack me personally (ad hominem) and didn't even mention anything I claimed or argued, let alone show why it is wrong. Well, you dispute my calling Stossel "a joke," but your reasoning as to why that is not true was "because you’re leftist filth and a democrat thrall."

Maybe it isn't that you don't understand what critical thinking is and how to do it. Maybe you just don't want to do that and only want to call people names instead.

[Moderation4ever]

The Federal government has been involved with education for many years as the Department of Education began in 1867. The question is does the Department of Education warrant a cabinet level position and I think that is a reasonable question to debate. I like to see a real inventory of what work the department does and some real discussion of how that work will be addressed. Some work I believe could be eliminated, other work shifted to the states and what remained reassigned to other agencies. I certainly believe that the DoEd could be bumped off the cabinet and downsized. I am less sure it could be totally eliminated.

[JFree]

No it does NOT warrant a cabinet level department. I can kind of understand why Carter took the civil rights functions out of the Dept of Justice and wanted to 'unbury' it so to speak. Busing/desegregation was a national issue then - driven by Supreme Court decisions. But the reality is that the nanosecond 'education' became a cabinet level department, then education becomes an issue for a PRESIDENT to campaign on - and thus gains separate electoral authority from Congress.

The department should be 'transferred' to the interstate compact on education. Most of it would simply be a (hopefully temporary) funding mechanism for that compact where the states themselves would decide, over time, whether that function has value - for them and within that interstate compact format - or not. If it doesn't have value, then it would wither away.

The separate - non-necessary - federal functions - like Indian and DoD schools and GI loans - could go back to being 'buried' in their various departments - or maybe moved to a new semi-cabinet semi-independent level department called 'Interstate Compact Operations' or something boring like that that could also, over time, include FEMA, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and a lot of other federal stuff that is questionable as part of the executive branch precisely because it isn't explicitly constitutional in Art1Sec8. It is truly the way for Congress to take back its legitimate constitutional authority and diminish the now-imperial and over-powerful executive Presidency.

[Moderation4ever]

Good analysis. I could certainly support an approach like this to eliminate the cabinet level DoEd.

[JFree]

The interstate compact idea is stunningly powerful for a country that wants to restore a sense of devolved federalism and reform the federal government to do so. Whether we still want to do that or not - idk. Ideologies like 'libertarianism' have proven themselves useless over many many decades. DeRp has proven it can't initiate any reform of anything at all. It is simply irredeemably corrupt.

AI is a freaking wonderful way for the initial stages of reform to be taken out of DeRp politics. I can ask ChatGPT a very poorly structured question like: How could Medicaid be reorganized within an interstate compact mechanism?
And, in two seconds, it can respond with:
Reorganizing Medicaid within an interstate compact mechanism would involve states voluntarily entering into a binding agreement—approved by Congress—to collectively administer and reform Medicaid outside the conventional federal-state partnership. This approach could allow states more flexibility while maintaining core Medicaid functions. Here's how such a reorganization could work, step by step:
1. Legal Foundation: Interstate Compact Framework
2. Goals of the Compact
3. Core Structural Elements
4. Congressional Consent
5. Federalism Implications
6. Precedents or Related Efforts
Potential Obstacles
Would you like a sample legislative outline or model compact language for such a proposal?

Include ALL the federal medical stuff - Medicare, VA Health, NIH - and have states include some of their stuff - teaching/research hospitals, muni hospitals, risk pools, etc in a compact mechanism - and AI could quickly produce 30-50+% cost reductions in that spending (down to the levels of international norms for basic medical for rich countries). By quickly - I mean a few days. Which would also leave plenty of space for a fully privatized medical system for anything beyond 'basic'.

Of course DeRp's (and 'libertarians') don't want that sort of massive real spending reform. They want virtue signaling fights over politics and ideology as electoral issues going forward.

[TJJ2000]

Andrew Jacksons [D] conquered attempt to launch a Department of Education =/= a Federal Department of Education.

UR being dishonest. But it does say one thing ... It has always been Democrats trying to destroy the US Constitution and everything the USA was founded to stand for.

[Alex]

The existence of a federal Department of Education is often debated, especially since education policy traditionally fell to the states. Some argue it's more about centralized control than actual support for students. I was reading up on this and stumbled across a surprising number of people discussing it while using 1xbet login platforms like this one during breaks—makes you wonder how many are actually engaging with the issue deeply. At the core, the question is whether federal oversight improves educational outcomes or just adds bureaucracy.