^{The Bottom Line} Dismantling the Department of Education Is Happening

It’s been just over one year since President Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education and return authority to the states. It was a historic day to take the first step toward stopping the status quo of pouring astronomical amounts of money and layering on more and more federal bureaucracy, without improving learning. Education is intended to be governed at the state and local level.

While it will take votes in Congress to fully eliminate the Department of Education, under the leadership of Secretary Linda McMahon, much progress has already occurred in downsizing it. For example, $2 billion in funds that supported radical ideologies have been cut, staffing has been downsized nearly 50%, and it announced it will move into a smaller, more appropriately sized building, saving taxpayers over $4.8 million per year.

The Department is eliminating waste, empowering parents, and freeing up states from burdensome rules and regulations so they can innovate. Additionally, the Department of Education is working with the Department of Labor, rather than continuing to maintain longstanding silos between departments.

Despite fearmongering tactics from teachers unions and their political allies, dismantling the Department of Education doesn’t harm students and their learning.

Secretary McMahon noted in a November USA Today article that during the recent government shutdown — the longest recorded at that point — education functioned as usual. Her point was that the Department of Education isn’t needed and that education can and should be managed closer to students.

McMahon wrote that the “43-day shutdown, which came smack in the middle of the fall semester, showed every family how unnecessary the federal education bureaucracy is to their children’s education. Students kept going to class. Teachers continued to get paid. There were no disruptions in sports seasons or bus routes.”

Continuing, she explained, “The shutdown proved an argument that conservatives have been making for 45 years: The U.S. Department of Education is mostly a pass-through for funds that are best managed by the states.”

Without question, the Trump administration has taken decisive action over the past year to reduce federal education spending and excessive bureaucracy. And, from the looks of things thus far in year number two, they aren’t planning to slow down any time soon.

Watch Keri D. Ingraham’s interview on Freedom to Learn with Ginny Gentles: