Since its establishment in 1979, opponents of a federal role in education have unsuccessfully called for the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education. With an upcoming presidential election, this argument has once again been resuscitated in a chapter in Project 2025 that details a conservative education agenda designed to help “abolish the Deep State.”
While this extreme action seems unlikely given the complexity, historical precedent, and bipartisan opposition, it would be politically possible in the event of a 2024 election that hands Republicans the presidency and both chambers of Congress.
This action, if taken, would be a grave mistake. Eliminating the Department of Education would cause irreparable harm to students across the nation, particularly those from historically disadvantaged communities.
Here are ten reasons why eliminating the Department would be devastating for the country and its students:
- Federal funding is a vital equalizer that helps under-resourced schools. Within an otherwise regressive school finance system that privileges schools in wealthy communities, the Department provides vital funding for schools, including
- $19B for economically disadvantaged communities (Title I);
- $15B for special education (IDEA); and,
- $29B for higher education student financial assistance (Pell Grants).
Many school districts rely on this funding to keep their schools open. While federal funding makes up a small percentage of total education spending, Title I funding varies greatly across states and districts – accounting for upwards of $5,000 per pupil in some schools. In the 2021 fiscal year, almost $1 in $5 of education funding for South Dakota and Mississippi came from the federal government, according to Education Week.
Without this funding, K-12 schools across the country that are already facing steep budget cuts would be forced to enact massive layoffs and program cuts at a time when learning loss remains high.
- The public opposes reduced federal education funding. Given the reduction in administrative capacity, eliminating the department would mean reducing or eliminating major programs (for examples, see above). However, nearly a supermajority of the public actually wants increased federal education spending. In 2023, about 2 in 3 adults said that the federal government is spending too little on education.
The level of work required for the management and distribution of existing funds – let alone increased funding – necessitates the oversight of the Department. - The Department enforces civil rights protections under the law. One of the most sensitive and critical roles of the Department is that of a protector of civil rights for the nation’s most marginalized students. The Department’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) receives thousands of complaints each year alleging violations of federal laws prohibiting discrimination and harassment and ensuring equal access to education.
In FY23, the Office of Civil Rights resolved 16,448 cases among 19,201 complaints for FY23 – the third highest number of complaint resolutions in its history – with a 45% increase in the number of case resolution agreements obtained. The resolutions included:- 7,757 Title IX complaints, including sexual violence at the elementary, secondary, and postsecondary levels;
- 6,409 Section 504/Title II complaints related to discrimination on the basis of disability; and
- 3,001 Title VI complaints ranging from allegations of race harassment to allegations of discrimination against English Learner students and their families.
- Federal data helps track trends and inform policy and practice. The Department monitors compliance with the requirements of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which provides crucial data on student achievement and outcomes disaggregated by race/ethnicity and for economically disadvantaged students, students with disabilities, English Learners, and others. Without these federal requirements, many states would choose not to collect and report this information – making it difficult to identify and address achievement gaps.
The Department also produces the Nation’s Report Card (also known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress or NAEP), which provides standardized results on academic performance across all 50 states that help policymakers understand how their states are performing. NAEP is the only apples-to-apples comparison we have across all 50 states on student achievement in math and ELA. NAEP scores allow us to evaluate state standards and assessment outcomes for rigor and equity by providing a common, inter-state benchmark.
Eliminating the Department would lead to data lags and loss, when efforts instead should be focused on expanding the timeliness, transparency, and accessibility of this data and equipping school leaders with the knowledge and infrastructure to use it.
- The expansion of the federal role in education has led to improved student achievement. From the Department’s establishment in 1979 until scores on the NAEP peaked in 2012, average math scale scores increased by the equivalent of about 1.5 grade levels and reading scores increased by about half a grade level. The fastest gains in those 33 years came between 1999 and 2012, coinciding with data collection requirements and related accountability measures that began with No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Experts have linked these federal measures with the significant increase in student achievement during that period, particularly for economically disadvantaged, Black, and Hispanic students.
NAEP scores then stagnated for the next eight years following the easing of NCLB’s accountability measures in 2012 and dropped sharply in 2022 following the pandemic. With significant ground lost in recent years, the role of the federal government in both measuring progress and spurring state action is all the more vital and it shouldn’t be lost on readers that the most dramatic achievement growth and narrowing of gaps happened when federal involvement was strongest.
- Millions of higher education students rely on federal funding to afford college. Pell Grants provide over 14.4 million students with funding to attend higher education, boosting enrollment and reducing dropout rates. Without this funding, many people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds would not be able to afford a college degree, limiting their potential and affecting workforce pipelines nationwide.
- The Department safeguards against predatory practices in higher education. Since 2021, the Department has issued $61.7M in fines and cut off aid to 35 colleges for violations since 2021, including a record $37.7M fine on Grand Canyon University for misleading its students. It also provided debt relief for 1.3 million borrowers who were taken advantage of by their school, saw their school precipitously close, or were covered by related court settlements.
- The Department is an integral part of the education research ecosystem. The Department provides important data and tools for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners through the Institute of Educational Sciences. It also supports the dissemination and implementation of evidence-based practices by states and districts, including through the Education Resources Information Center (a database of education research and information) and the What Works Clearinghouse (a source of scientific evidence on education programs, products, practices, and policies).
- The public broadly opposes the elimination of the U.S. Department of Education. According to a July 2024 YouGov poll, over 6 in 10 Americans oppose the proposal to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. This would mean that the action would not only wreak havoc upon the budgets of local communities but also be unpopular with voters from the very start.
- Even if it was feasible, eliminating the Department without eliminating programs is unlikely to save money. The Department’s operational costs are low relative to its oversight. Despite having the smallest staff of the 15 Cabinet agencies, its discretionary budget is the third largest, behind only the Department of Defense and the Department of Health and Human Services. The administrative costs of the Department represent less than 5% of its total discretionary funding.
So, eliminating the Department in an attempt to “shrink” government bureaucracy would likely result in similar staff positions reemerging in other departments while suffering the loss of institutional knowledge and continuity for the programs.
Without the U.S. Department of Education, critical federal funding for schools across the country would be reduced or eliminated, exacerbating already pressing financial strains and inequities. Schools would struggle to meet their budgetary commitments, and economic turbulence would ensue as a result of local budget shrinkages and workforce layoffs. Important resources to monitor the efficacy of schools and support their improvement would disappear, hindering the adoption of evidence-based practices and student outcomes. Federal protections for students of historically marginalized groups would be eroded, leading to unchecked instances of discrimination, particularly where there is less state oversight.
While some would propose that the Department’s responsibilities – such as data collection and civil rights enforcement – be reallocated to other agencies, such a transition would create unnecessary chaos and worsen outcomes for historically disadvantaged students. And because data collection would be a part of this transition, it would likely be impossible to adequately monitor, evaluate, and address the impact of the Department’s elimination.