OPINION:
America’s founders wisely designed a balance of power between states and the federal government to ensure the freedoms of the nation’s citizens. However, the federal government has become too powerful in many ways, undermining its ability to operate efficiently and effectively.
Education needs to be returned to its proper local roots, and parental authority over their children’s learning needs to be protected. The first step is to help parents and local communities escape federal control.
As President Trump has rightly pointed out, educational achievement has not improved despite dramatic increases in federal intervention and funding in the government (public) school system since the 1960s. The most widely used measure of academic achievement is the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Even before COVID-19 disruptions, NAEP reported a steady decline in reading, which is fundamental to all other learning. Although hundreds of billions of dollars were infused in government schools in the name of learning loss from COVID-19, 40% of fourth-graders in 2024 ranked on the lowest rung of the NAEP scale: below basic.
Federal efforts to improve academic outcomes for low-income children have also been expensive and unproductive. Even the federal college grant and loan programs have been ineffective for students. The evidence is inarguable: The federal government’s intervention in education has been a dismal failure.
U.S. Parents Involved in Education has developed a blueprint to effectively close the Department of Education and end federal influence in student learning. Elimination of federal intervention can be achieved in five steps:
• Send all program management and funding to the states.
• Repeal all laws permitting federal intervention in K-12 education, starting with the Every Student Succeeds Act.
• Privatize college loan programs through savings and loan institutions.
• Eliminate all offices and divisions in the Department of Education and related spending.
• Reduce federal tax collection and shift education revenue entirely back to the states.
In recent weeks, bills have been filed in Congress to close the Department of Education. One bill simply shifts the department’s functions to other federal agencies. This will not remove the federal education footprint and will conflict with Mr. Trump’s executive order that says, “The experiment of controlling American education through federal programs and dollars — and the unaccountable bureaucracy those programs and dollars support — has plainly failed our children, our teachers, and our families.” Moreover, disbursing Education Department programs to multiple federal agencies will make it more difficult to monitor the efficacy and efficiency of these programs.
The United States Parents Involved in Education blueprint restores local and parental control of education by eliminating all federal involvement in education, including the tax burden on American citizens. The final step in the blueprint calls for a shift in revenue collection. Regardless of which federal agency implements Education Department programs, funding a bloated federal bureaucracy is wasteful for taxpayers, especially when the goal is local control. If education dollars that come from states to fund federal programs remain within the states, states will have more revenue to use as they see fit to improve student learning.
This segues into another plank of Mr. Trump’s education platform: school choice. Unlike most school voucher programs in discussion or already in use, we propose adding tax credit legislation to close the Department of Education. This would support the goals of closing that department and empowering parents who wish to choose nongovernmental alternatives.
Rep. Barry Moore of Alabama has introduced a bill, HR 2691, to close the Department of Education. It would allocate funding to states based on the total amount of federal individual income taxes paid by residents of each state. We propose a friendly amendment to his bill that would allocate to states the aggregate amount of federal individual income taxes in two ways:
• Federal taxpayers with children who choose private or home education receive a child tax credit equal to the per-pupil allocation for each child not attending government schools.
• Federal taxpayers of households with children attending government schools would prompt their per-pupil allocation to be block-granted to their respective states.
On its face, a voucher-type solution appears viable for making alternative education affordable for parents who do not want their children indoctrinated through government schools. The problem is that once government money is infused into these alternative modes of education, they too will become controlled by the government and subject to the woke agenda that has ravaged government schools.
In a 1980 court case affirmed by the Supreme Court, the federal government prevailed over Hillsdale College, asserting that educational institutions that accept students who receive government funds are subject to government regulation. If the money-follows-the-child programs are implemented nationwide, they will destroy private and home education and make all learning government-controlled.
Mr. Trump’s executive order proclaims that closing the Department of Education “would provide children and their families the opportunity to escape a system that is failing them.” However, if its functions were simply moved to other agencies, there would be no escape or meaningful reduction in wasteful spending. More importantly, keeping the government out of private and home education would protect the essence of parental choice.
The blueprint steps above show a clear path for ending all federal education influence. Mr. Moore’s bill, enhanced with our tax credit proposal, would be more economically efficient and would protect private and home education. This plan would meet Mr. Trump’s goals of reducing the federal education bureaucracy and empowering families. Parents and local communities, not the federal government, are better suited to making education great again.
• Sheri Few is the founder and president of United States Parents Involved in Education. Sam Sorbo is the founder and president of They’re Your Kids education foundation.
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