Why the Department of Education Has to Go

In signing Executive Order 14242 (“Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities”), President Trump directed the secretary of education 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.” That order will have immense consequences for federal and state government, as well as for the character of the American people. Moving forward, the key questions are whether Congress will back up the order, whether state government will reform its education policymaking structure, and whether the American people will engage on academic content. All these necessitate a repudiation of habits induced by the century-long progressive march against the Constitution.

With respect to education, progressivism has emasculated Congress. The structural context of the Department of Education (USED) contravenes Alexander Hamilton’s warning in Federalist No. 70 about dividing executive power. Where executive power is diffused, blame for poor decisions is “shifted from one to another with so much dexterity, and under such plausible appearances, that the public opinion is left in suspense about the real author.” Granted, Hamilton had in mind diffusions within a single executive, but the principle holds where more than one executive has a hand in the jar. Where there are two departments of education, as is the case with every state (one federal and one state), who is to blame for disaster? Moreover, USED is insulated from public scrutiny because Congress’s priorities are on national and international matters such as war and peace, monetary issues, international crime, and border security. 

Both of these structural defects played out in the infliction of Common Core State Standards on American children. In President Obama’s first administration, in the throes of a monetary crisis, USED unleashed its Common Core scheme. Dangling points on a grant competition (not even in exchange for actual money), USED, with ample assistance from special-interest partners, browbeat nearly every state to adopt Common Core’s math and English content standards as well as aligned, federally funded, high-stakes tests. As the ensuing education disaster unfolded, Common Core proponents whined that the problem was not that USED championed an inferior product or usurped the primacy of parents. The problem, they argued, was that states, teachers, and districts had poorly implemented the program.  

Situated in this extra-constitutional position, USED has stumbled forth, inflicting fad after fad on generations of American children. To that end, the White House succinctly spelled out its reasoning for the executive order. USED has aggressively interfered in the formation of children, inserting itself into the relationship between parents and the states and between parents and their children. Moreover, the White House argues that per pupil spending has exponentially increased since USED’s creation, yet American academic achievement has declined remarkably. Indeed, in the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress study (NAEP), math and reading scores were abysmal. Seventy-two percent of eighth graders were not proficient in math, and 70 percent were not proficient in reading. Writing for Pioneer Institute in 2020, education analyst Ted Rebarber observed that, since the nearly nationwide adoption of Common Core, “the total gain before Common Core was statistically significant and the total decline since Common Core [has also been] statistically significant.” Yet, despite disasters like Common Core, Goals 2000, and No Child Left Behind, USED sallies forth, happily taking citizen money and interfering in children’s formation. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, USED enjoys the remarkable habit of tripping over the truth, picking itself up, and charging forth as if nothing had ever happened. That is the luxury of its extra-constitutional perch.

Common Core, which is largely still with us, is in furtherance of a pre-existing plague on our government and citizenry. For decades, progressive education has diminished the prominence of fiction and historical narratives in literary form (for example, the autobiographies of Benjamin Franklin and Frederick Douglass). Common Core continued that trend and advocated that such literature be replaced with “informational texts,” listless pieces such as government bulletins. It pushed aside the classics—the great stories of ubiquitous moral dilemmas—in favor of lower-quality fad literature. This has had tragic consequences for children and for the American Experiment.

Reading great literature benefits students in myriad ways. From it, children most readily gain a rich vocabulary and learn to express themselves in verbal and written form. They develop prudential decision-making, increase their empathy, and learn to consider others’ points of view. Such literature promotes rational decision-making by reducing the need for cognitive closure, that is, seizing on another’s statement or act and shutting out even the possibility of additional information. Reading great literature engages students and appeals to the natural human disposition to engage with good stories. It helps one understand the human condition and stokes the imagination, preludes to human flourishing and a great culture. 

Such literature also sparks the student’s interest in a story’s historical context, thus promoting a love of history. Not surprisingly, the data on students’ appreciation of history portends a national tragedy. The 2022 NAEP survey reported that only 13 percent of students were proficient in history, continuing an overall trend since 2001. Perhaps more alarming is how our history is taught. Historian Wilfred McClay, professor at Hillsdale College and author of the acclaimed textbook Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story, laments: “We have neglected an essential element in the formation of good citizens when we fail to provide the young with an accurate, responsible, and inspiring account of their own country—an account that will inform and deepen their sense of identification with the land they inhabit and equip them for the privileges and responsibilities of citizenship.” How, we must ask ourselves, could such a fractured, listless account of our history help with our national project—to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”?

The implication of all this is that, in addition to Congressional fortitude, the return to high-quality education and a cohesive society will not happen unless the American people demand reform of their state governments, in red and blue states alike, and engage on matters of academic content. Federal grant programs have stoked the creation of powerful state bureaucracies that are ideological siblings of USED. That perversity was by design. Federal education meddling is one step in the progressive project to, as Woodrow Wilson phrased it in 1887, “improve public opinion, which is the motive power of government.” Their strategy has been to reshape the minds and habits of Americans, to accommodate expert management of their lives. Federal, state, and local legislative prominence would need to be degraded, because that was where the people tested and refined their ideas and made them into policy. Even the notion of fundamental rights, such as the right of parents to direct their children’s formation, poses a threat to the power of expert managers. Perhaps most alarming, progressives have bit by bit tamped down public discussion of education content—in other words, discussion on the formation of citizens. Lest anyone thinks otherwise, the federal dollar and a compliant media have driven the dominant narrative, spilling education fads into private and Catholic education (although not to Belmont Abbey College). School choice will be meaningless if it provides parents with a mere echo. It will be akin to the state-controlled, parallel churches in China.

The executive order thus has three levels of meaning: It directs the secretary of education to implement administrative reform, gives implicit notice to Congress that it too must repudiate federal centralization, and calls upon the citizenry to engage in education content. The historical consequences of its unfolding will extend far beyond USED’s elimination.