U.S. Department of Education: 40 Years Is Enough

Neal McCluskeyHappy birthday U.S. Department of Education—I guess. Today is ED ’s 40th (yes, that ’s its official abbreviation) and its impact has been mixed at best, and most likely negative. The same goes for federal education intervention overall, which became especially centralized with ED’s birth. Thankfully, as I and my co‐​authorslay out in a  new Cato paper, there are achievable ways out.To understand what ED is about, and what the feds have accomplished in education, it ’s worth watching the entirethree ‐​part webinar Cato ’s Center for Educational Freedom put on last week. It features speakers who have studied federal education policy extensively, some of whom were also involved in ED’s earliest days.Thefirst panel discussed why the Department was created. The biggest pursuit was not academic excellence or expanding education access —though they likely motivated many policymakers—but political power. As Christopher Cross, author ofPolitical Education: Setting the Course for State and Federal Policy, explained, ED was basically a  payoff to the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, for their 1976 support of Jimmy Carter’s presidential candidacy.“Jimmy Carter…recognized the importance of having the network of teachers out there across the country who were NEA members working on his behalf,” Cross said.Alas, ED ’s constitutionality was at most a tiny part of the debate, if it was grappled with at ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs