Do we need the Department of Education?
For this post, we’re discussing the federal Department of Education, and my flat out answer is an emphatic NO. The federal Department of Education – and certainly to an extent state education bureaucracies – are great examples of government central planning that fails to improve anything, or more likely make it worse.
More than 1.9 million people subscribe to the free Hillsdale College monthly newsletter Imprimis and if you don’t subscribe you might as well click here to subscribe for free. Some of the authors may seem obscure to you, but it certainly does not mean the information is not valuable. Take for instance Charles Murray’s speech in Atlanta at an October 2011 conference on Markets, Government, and the Common Good.
The case for the Department of Education could rest on one or more of three legs: its constitutional appropriateness, the existence of serious problems in education that could be solved only at the federal level, and/or its track record since it came into being. Let us consider these in order.
Read the entire speech as I think you’ll find it worth your time. In short, Murray agrees with me, and I would like to read your comments below.
If you’re one who thinks the federal Department of Education has value and is properly one of the roles of the federal government, let me know why. Just know that if you come up with the “kids are the future and if we don’t have a DOE, they will suffer” excuse, that’s a completely false argument since we have local and state funding, plus local school boards and state DOEs.
This redundancy is a killer when it comes to the economy and financial strength of the United States, and there is no value.