The simple version is that there is no Constitutional mandate for the Federal government to do anything related to education, which is why education is a function of the states. Yet it’s also 4% of the Federal budget, so depending on how much of a strict constitutionalist you are, the root question is more about what does it really need to be doing, and why. I would argue that this far after the end of Jim Crowe, and the proliferation of for-profit universities, ED isn’t maintaining standards, and is moving too slow to not simply feed Univ of Phoenix publicly-backed loan and GI Bill funds at a net loss to both taxpayers and students.
At the state level, from what I hear second hand, ED does little more than manage overly complicated and tonedeaf grant mechanisms that flow down to state Education Departments, and then becomes this sort of Leviathan of distant micromanagement. Often with feckless management, confusing and unclear terms, and making the District/State/ED relationship unnecessarily odd and overly burdensome.
Carter carved a new Department out of the Proto-HHS, and it’s been a target of elimination since it was created. Its necessary functions can either get folded into DOI, or maybe back into HHS, or maybe even just a smaller independent agency, though that alone raises the specter of duplicitive administrative costs.
The simple version is that there is no Constitutional mandate for the Federal government to do anything related to education, which is why education is a function of the states. Yet it’s also 4% of the Federal budget, so depending on how much of a strict constitutionalist you are, the root question is more about what does it really need to be doing, and why. I would argue that this far after the end of Jim Crowe, and the proliferation of for-profit universities, ED isn’t maintaining standards, and is moving too slow to not simply feed Univ of Phoenix publicly-backed loan and GI Bill funds at a net loss to both taxpayers and students.
At the state level, from what I hear second hand, ED does little more than manage overly complicated and tonedeaf grant mechanisms that flow down to state Education Departments, and then becomes this sort of Leviathan of distant micromanagement. Often with feckless management, confusing and unclear terms, and making the District/State/ED relationship unnecessarily odd and overly burdensome.
Carter carved a new Department out of the Proto-HHS, and it’s been a target of elimination since it was created. Its necessary functions can either get folded into DOI, or maybe back into HHS, or maybe even just a smaller independent agency, though that alone raises the specter of duplicitive administrative costs.