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Why America Needs to Eliminate the Department of Education

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President Trump Signs Executive Order to Close the Dept of Education – March 20, 2025.

During his campaign, President Donald Trump promised to work to end the Department of Education. On March 20, 2025, he signed an executive order gutting the department, but he can’t legally eliminate it entirely without an act of Congress. In a fact sheet explaining his order, the White House said:

RETURNING EDUCATION TO PARENTS AND COMMUNITIES: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order returning power over education to families instead of bureaucracies.

  • The Executive Order directs the Secretary of Education to take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the States, while continuing to ensure the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.
  • The Order also directs that programs or activities receiving any remaining Department of Education funds will not advance DEI or gender ideology.

DISMANTLING BUREAUCRACY AND EMPOWERING FAMILIES: Federal government control of education has failed students, parents, and teachers.

  • Since its relatively recent inception in 1979, the Department of Education, which does not directly educate students, has spent over $3 trillion without improving student achievement as measured by standardized National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores.
    • Federal taxpayers spent around $200 billion in additional education funding during COVID-19, which, given the substantial learning loss that resulted, typifies the ineffectiveness of the current federally driven model.
  • Mathematics and reading scores are down in public schools, despite per-pupil spending having increased by more than 245% since the 1970s, indicating that more spending does not mean better education.
    • 13-year-olds’ mathematics scores are the lowest they have been in decades.
    • 13-year-olds’ reading scores are the lowest since testing began over 30 years ago.
    • Low-performing students are falling further behind.
    • In 2023, 13 Baltimore, Maryland, high schools had zero students who tested proficient in mathematics.
  • The Department of Education burdens schools with regulations and paperwork.
    • Its “Dear Colleague” letters have forced schools to redirect resources toward complying with ideological initiatives, which diverts staff time and attention away from schools’ primary role of teaching.
    • Biden’s Department of Education added rules that imposed nearly $3.9 billion in costs and 4,239,530 paperwork hours.
  • Taxpayers will no longer be burdened with tens of billions of dollars wasted on progressive social experiments and obsolete programs.
    • Under the Biden Administration, the Department of Education wasted more than $1 billion in grants focused on entrenching radical ideologies in education.
    • Biden’s Department of Education rewrote Title IX rules to expand the definition of “sex” discrimination to include “gender identity.”
    • The Trump Administration recently canceled $226 million in grants under the Comprehensive Centers Program that forced radical agendas onto states and systems, including race-based discrimination and gender identity ideology.

FULFILLING PROMISES TO PARENTS AND STUDENTS: President Trump has outlined a bold vision for America’s schools and returning education back to the states.

  • During his campaign, President Trump said “I will close the Department of Education and move education back to the states where it belongs.”
  • While speaking on parental rights in education, President Trump spoke of a dramatic rethinking of schools: “I want every parent in America to be empowered to send their child to public, private, charter, or faith-based school of their choice. The time for universal school choice has come. As we return education to the states, I will use every power I have to give parents this right.”
  • Since returning to office, President Trump has already signed an Executive Order to expand educational freedom and opportunity for families, recognizing our government-assigned education system has failed millions of parents, students, and teachers.

At the Cato Institute, Neal McCluskey explains five reasons the Department of Education should be eliminated, writing:

  1. It’s unconstitutional: Education is nowhere among the specific, enumerated powers given to the federal government. That means the feds have no authority to govern in education. Even the big-government administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt knew that. In 1943, the US Constitution Sesquicentennial Commission, which Roosevelt chaired, published a document that included the following: “Q. Where, in the Constitution, is there mention of education? A. There is none; education is a matter reserved for the states.”
  2. It’s ineffective: As indicated by the chart below, in K–12 education there is no meaningful evidence that the department, or federal spending generally, has improved education outcomes. While federal spending has risen, National Assessment of Educational Progress outcomes have largely stagnated. Of course, standardized test scores might not be a great barometer of how well the education system is working, but it is the feds that elevated them under the No Child Left Behind Act, Race to the Top, and Common Core. So by Washington’s own measure, it has not been very effective.
  3. It’s incompetent: US ED’s biggest job is to administer federal student aid programs, especially student loans. But as the Government Accountability Office recently reported, US ED has failed at basic functions like tracking repayments for years. Heck, it could not even simplify the form to apply for aid without creating havoc.
  4. It’s unnecessary: We had been educating kids for centuries before the department launched in 1980 and leading the world economically, technologically, and more. And US ED’s own mission statement is full of words such as “promote” and “supplement,” not “control” or “run.” Because states, districts, families, and educators are responsible for education, not Washington.
  5. It’s expensive: Until recently, the department employed nearly 4,200 people and cost about $2.8 billion for salaries and expenses. And that’s setting aside all of the money it distributes and programs it runs, which are not about the department itself but tally hundreds of billions of dollars a year, depending on how you account for the huge, murky, unconstitutional student loan programs.

Read more here.

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Richard C. Young
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