OPINION:
Just before Thanksgiving, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon announced six interagency partnerships to “return education to states.”
In reality, these partnerships simply transfer funding and programs from the Department of Education to other federal agencies, such as the departments of Labor, Interior, State, and Health and Human Services. Meanwhile, the Department of Education retains statutory responsibilities and oversight. This is not decentralization; it is bureaucratic reshuffling dressed up as reform.
The Trump administration’s approach mirrors The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 plan, which proposes scattering federal education programs across agencies rather than dismantling them. For more than a decade, U.S. Parents Involved in Education has advocated closing the Department of Education and ending federal mandates altogether. We even published a blueprint outlining how to restore parental and local control.
Ms. McMahon’s plan dilutes education policy within unrelated agencies and makes federal influence harder to track. It is the epitome of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
School choice advocate Corey DeAngelis has weighed in on this issue, repeating familiar talking points with which we agree: Federal involvement violates the 10th Amendment, schools are failing, according to National Assessment of Educational Progress scores, teachers unions have a stronghold, and we need to empower local communities. Mr. DeAngelis wrote recently in The Daily Economy: “America’s students deserve better than a federal fiefdom beholden to special interests.” Yet these words ring hollow when paired with support for simply shifting programs to other federal agencies.
Calling Ms. McMahon’s move “returning education to the states” is deceptive. Moving programs from the Department of Education to the Department of Labor does not restore state authority; it entrenches federal control under a different label.
The July 15 agreement between the departments of Education and Labor set the stage for the six additional agreements to shift programs to other federal agencies. It transfers $2.18 billion to create an “integrated federal education workforce system.” Deputy Assistant Secretary Nick Moore praised it as historic, aligning with executive orders to streamline workforce systems. Yet the underlying philosophy — treating children as economic units to be tracked, credentialed and matched to jobs — has been tried before and failed. Education should prepare children for life, not reduce them to cogs in a federal workforce machine.
Families and faith communities, not Washington bureaucrats, should guide career and life choices.
This workforce-driven model is not new. It began with outcome-based education, morphed into school‑to‑work, was repackaged as No Child Left Behind, and today appears as college and career readiness under the Common Core standards. Each iteration has promised improvement, yet each has further entrenched federal control and lowered expectations. Government education has become a tool for employers and the Chamber of Commerce, using taxpayer dollars to shape children into workers rather than thinkers. Children have been dumbed down to the lowest common denominator under the guise of “equity” and “equal outcomes,” doing families and the nation a disservice.
Furthermore, a recent report concludes: “Computer science graduates are facing 6.1% unemployment in 2025 — nearly double the rate of philosophy majors. This completely flips what students were told about CS being a safe career choice.”
What American children deserve is a classical liberal arts education that cultivates truth, goodness and beauty and produces independent thinkers rather than compliant workers. For centuries, classical education formed great leaders, inventors, scientists, writers, philosophers, theologians, physicians, lawyers, artists and musicians. It nurtured the God‑given gifts of each child, preparing them not merely for careers but also for life. That — not the failed federal experiments that have dominated since the Department of Education’s inception in 1979 — is the tradition we should reclaim.
Mr. Moore’s HR 2691 bill to close the Department of Education is a step in the right direction. It provides block grant funding to states based on federal income taxes paid by residents. We propose strengthening the bill with two amendments. First, federal taxpayers with children in private or home education should receive a child tax credit per child equal to their state’s per‑pupil allocation. Second, taxes from families with children in government schools should flow directly into state education funds.
In light of Ms. McMahon’s recent actions to disburse federal education programs to other agencies, HR 2691 also must specify the end date of all Department of Education programs as Jan. 20, 2025.
Only then can we truly restore education to states, communities and families. Anything less is simply deception — an attempt to sound conservative while keeping federal tentacles firmly wrapped around America’s classrooms. The federal government has no business in education. No matter how much lipstick is applied, the swine remains the same: intrusive, unconstitutional and destructive to the future of our children.
• Sheri Few is the founder and president of United States Parents Involved in Education.
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