By Matthew Loucks, Student Submission
Each year, billions of taxpayer dollars are funneled into an inefficient, costly and disgraceful abomination of an institution – the Department of Education.
Despite its name, the Department of Education has ironically never educated anybody. They serve to administer standardized policies across the entire nation, collect data on U.S. schools and enforce educational laws.
From Common Core to No Child Left Behind, this department has implemented a series of unsuccessful one-size-fits-all policies. Failing to enact these policies could mean losing federal funding, effectively blackmailing schools into adopting poor policies.
Each school’s needs are different and an implementation of education on a national level is a wrong approach to educate the future democratic citizens of the United States. The Department of Education’s inability to increase student proficiency, violation of the constitution and its exorbitant costs is a testament to its redundancy.
Because of this, we should abolish it.
One would think that pouring billions of extra dollars into education would increase proficiency rates across the nation. This, unfortunately, is not the case, with test scores in math, reading and science showing a stagnant flatline over the years. The primary reason for abolition is their lack of impact on the performance of U.S students in critical areas such as reading, math and science.
Despite being one of the wealthiest and most developed countries in the world, the United States still lags behind many other countries in terms of our educational achievement. These are not the kinds of results that a multi-billion dollar government department is supposed to achieve. By giving educational preference back to the states, we may finally be able to suit student’s needs across the country.
Thomas Jefferson advocated for education in order to grow the body of free-thinking democratic citizens; the current system which over-values standardized tests does not appropriately gage nor develop the qualities conducive with such a citizen.
Math and reading comprehension, which in no way prepare students to bear the burden of life, are the primary focus in today’s classrooms. It’s time to let the states decide what is right for their students, and forcing standardized curriculum across the nation has proven so far only to flatline our progress.
Though it appears to be a benign institution, this monolith of a department is an indirect violation of the American constitution.
In opposition to the 10th amendment, the Department of Education is a power not specifically entitled to the control of the federal government. 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 (US Const., amend. X).
This very minor detail may be overlooked if the department were to actually benefit the students of the United States. This, however, could not be any further from the truth. During its formation, members of Congress grew to overlook and accept the presence of the Department of Education.
Ignoring laws as though they don’t exist is not a matter to be taken lightly. Inconsistencies with law and enforcement with regards to the constitution undermine everything it stands for.
With the national debt soaring to incredible heights every year, it’s hard to reconcile with throwing away taxpayer dollars frivolously. At an astonishing $59.9 billion budget, the Department of Education takes a modest, yet quite sizable amount of money from federal dollars as stated in President Trump’s 2019 fiscal year budget request.
Instead of investing in another redundant government bureaucracy, this money could be dedicated to more useful endeavors such as health care or fixing our crumbling infrastructure. This money could certainly be used to help the near-crisis level threat of student loans.
While the Department of Education certainly does provide some funding for public schools, they only do so when harmful policies are adopted. By abolishing the Department of Education, schools won’t have to make the hard choice of losing educational freedom with their students for additional funding. The crudely veiled blackmail of this department will be assimilated into more useful facets of the government.
It may seem that getting rid of the Department of Education at this point would be too costly. Despite its current entrenchment in the public school system, reverting now would restore power back to the states and allow them to educate freely according to their needs and desires. This would lose them of the debilitating policies which stifle student academic achievement and hinder those who show great potential.
In order to grow the minds of America’s youth, we cannot settle for mediocre measurements of mental fortitude. No Child Left Behind and Common Core have both been disasters in terms of public education. By abolishing the Department of Education, we may once again see the best and brightest of us prosper once more.
