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Why the department does more harm than good — and how we could actually help students.

The real work would again be done in the states and amongst students, families, and educators. The need for a bulging federal bureaucracy would disappear. If, as a result, the US Department of Education itself disappeared, so much the better!

by BETSY DEVOS

Imagine a government program that existed to achieve one goal — a laudable goal. But after spending more than $1 trillion in taxpayer dollars — that’s trillion, with twelve zeros — in pursuit of that goal, not only had the agency failed to achieve the goal, but it had also made the problem demonstrably worse.

Perhaps it’s not that hard to imagine because so much of what the federal government does is to fail in its mission.

But that scenario is far from hypothetical. It’s the regrettable truth about the US Department of Education. And those trillion dollars only scratch the surface of why the agency is a failed experiment and a malignancy to those who love freedom and believe students are more important than “the education system.”

The department’s main function in elementary and secondary education has been to spend money … a lot of money. But over the course of its four-decade history, there’s scant evidence that the department has done anything to improve student outcomes. In fact, there is considerable evidence to the contrary. It doesn’t take much more than a cursory skim of the Nation’s Report Card to see that it’s true.

But with money comes power. And because the Department of Education controls so much money, it has the power to push schools around, meaning that even things like “nonregulatory guidance” and “Dear Colleague letters” quickly become law in schools because the department threatens to withhold funding from those who don’t adhere to its edicts.

Power has been the department’s primary purpose. Its bulging bureaucracy has created rules, guidance, conditions, and red tape that have consistently stifled innovation, shackled teachers, slowed student achievement, advanced political agendas, and squandered most of the trillions in taxpayer dollars that have come through “Big ED’s” Brutalist doorways.

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