Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and fellow Democrats criticize President Donald Trump’s plan to shutter the Education Department on March 6, 2025. AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
by J. Pharoah Doss
In 2019, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) received criticism for her radical proposal to abolish the Department of Homeland Security. Ocasio-Cortez replied, “It’s not that radical. When DHS was first formed by Bush 17 years ago, many members of Congress were concerned—including GOP members—that we were setting up a ticking time bomb for civil liberties erosion and abuse of power. Discussing reorganization shouldn’t be out of the question.”
Eliminating the DOE isn’t radical either, and reorganization may be appropriate.
The Reorganization Act of 1939 established the Federal Security Agency (FSA), which brought together all federal programs that dealt with health, education, and social security. The FSA was eliminated under Reorganization Plan #1 in 1953, but all of its functions were reassigned to the secretary of the newly formed Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW).
In 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed the Department of Education Organization Act. The act split education from HEW, establishing the Department of Education (DOE) and renaming the remainder of HEW the Department of Health and Human Services.
The new Department of Education did not inherit all federal education programs. The Department of Agriculture maintained responsibility for the school lunch program, the Department of Health and Human Services for Head Start, and the Department of Labor for job training.
The DOE performed five key functions. 1) Develop a policy for federal financial aid. 2) Gather data and share studies about American schools. 3) Direct national attention to major educational concerns. 4) Prohibit discrimination in education. 5) Make recommendations on educational reform.
Republicans and Democrats argued that the DOE was unconstitutional. The tenth amendment left education policy up to each state. Representatives who backed the DOE circumvented the 10th Amendment by saying the DOE’s “funding role” made it legitimate under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause and its Taxing and Spending Clause.
The election of Republican Ronald Reagan as president in 1980 sparked strong opposition to the DOE and calls for its elimination. However, during Reagan’s 1984 reelection campaign, the GOP dropped “eliminating the DOE” from its platform after an education report was released the previous year.
The 1983 A Nation at Risk report found a dramatic decline in K-12 education. Between 1963 and 1980, average SAT scores plummeted by more than 50 points in the verbal portion and over 40 points in the math section. The report warned, “The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people.”
Both parties decided to prioritize education.
In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Goals 2000 Act, which identified world-class academic standards, established a framework for measuring student progress, and provided support for students to meet the goals. Federal spending and control over education both increased. In 1996, the GOP’s platform included the elimination of the DOE. Republicans again questioned the DOE’s constitutionality, claiming it was becoming a “national school board.” Because the DOE was responsible for educational reform and increasing national standards, the Republicans accused it of inadvertently micromanaging local schools.
Since many of the aims of Goals 2000 were not met by the turn of the century, both parties prioritized boosting education once more, but this time they clashed over objectives. Congress passed No Child Left Behind in 2002, only to replace it with Every Student Succeeds in 2015. The distinctions between the two are insignificant because neither was effective. Meanwhile, the DOE’s budget skyrocketed, with no tangible achievements to justify the spending.
In 2016, Donald Trump, a businessman who had never served in public office, shocked the political establishment by capturing the Republican presidential nomination. Trump argued that America’s two political parties had abandoned the production sector and the working class, and he ran on lowering the size of the federal government.
After winning the presidency, Trump advocated merging the DOE with the Department of Labor. The Trump administration held the belief that combining education and labor would enhance students’ career preparation. The political establishment doubted Trump’s ability to shrink and reorganize the federal government while maintaining levels of efficiency; thus, the merging of education and labor was not taken seriously.
Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, defeated Donald Trump in 2020. Biden appointed Miguel Cardona as Secretary of Education. Cardona claimed that the DOE, at its core, is a civil rights agency that makes sure students in “protected classes” receive an equitable public education. This shift in core purpose resulted in a renewed call to abolish the DOE.
Eliminating the DOE was a top priority in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a guide for the next president to downsize the federal government. The Heritage Foundation sought to abolish every federal function of the DOE except for collecting statistics and providing information to states.
During Trump’s 2024 reelection campaign, his opponents linked him to Project 2025. Many people believed that voting for Trump would jeopardize American education because Trump would abolish the DOE and eliminate federal funding to states, which would widen the divide between wealthy and poor school districts.
However, Trump’s plan to minimize the federal role in education policy differed from the Heritage Foundation’s. Trump stated that he wanted to eliminate the DOE while keeping its “core necessities,” such as Title I financing for low-income schools, Pell scholarships, and money for disabled children. Trump’s administration will simply reassign these responsibilities to other departments.
The 1983 A Nation at Risk report stated, “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on Americans the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might have viewed it as an act of war.”
Eliminating the DOE will not put American education at risk. It’s merely a change in strategy in the ongoing battle against mediocrity.
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