A Reassessment of Federal Oversight in American Public Schooling

A Nation at an Educational Crossroads

In 1979, the U.S. Department of Education was created with the goal of elevating education across the country. At the time, American students led the world in academic performance, and education was largely administered by states and local districts. The Department promised national coherence, equity, and innovation in a system that was already high-performing.

Now, nearly 50 years later, America finds itself in an educational crisis. Basic skills among students are in steep decline. School systems are mired in bureaucracy. Taxpayer dollars are being spent in historically large sums with little to show for it. And many Americans are asking a fundamental question: Has the Department of Education helped or hurt?

This article explores the origins, structure, outcomes, and future of the Department. It argues that instead of improving education, the Department has become a bloated bureaucracy with political priorities misaligned with educational excellence.

Declining Academic Performance: A Stark Reality

Academic performance in American public schools has deteriorated over time, despite technological advances, federal intervention, and large public investments.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the 2022 NAEP results showed just 28% of eighth-grade students were proficient in math, and only 31% in reading. In U.S. history, a 2023 report found only 13% of students tested at grade-level proficiency.

International comparisons tell the same story. The PISA 2022 exam, administered by the OECD to 15-year-olds in over 70 countries, ranked the U.S. 28th in math, 14th in reading, and 18th in science—behind countries like Estonia, Slovenia, and Canada.

Urban districts fare even worse. In Chicago, data from 2023 showed that 22 public schools had not a single student proficient in reading, and 33 schools had zero math proficiency. These aren’t isolated incidents—they reflect systemic failure in multiple regions nationwide.

The alarming truth is that many students in the world’s richest nation are failing to master the basics. The promise of better outcomes through federal oversight has not been realized. On the contrary, the Department of Education’s footprint has grown, while student mastery of core subjects has shrunk.

Financial Investment vs. Educational Outcomes

The usual refrain—that the education system is underfunded—doesn’t align with the data.

In 2022, the U.S. spent $17,013 per student, the third-highest per-student spending among OECD countries. In some districts, especially urban centers with failing schools, the number is even higher: Chicago Public Schools, for example, spent $29,000 per student in 2023, nearly double the national average.
(Source: U.S. Census Bureau; Illinois State Board of Education)

Compare this to countries that outperform the U.S. academically: Estonia spends less than $9,000 per student and consistently ranks in the top five globally.

So where is the money going?

While teachers remain underpaid in many regions, a growing share of educational funding goes to administration, compliance officers, consultants, and non-instructional staff. Expensive programs launched or mandated by the federal government—often with little to no measurable academic benefit—divert money away from classrooms and into bureaucracy.

The data reveals a frustrating contradiction: we are spending more than ever, yet educating less effectively.

Origins Rooted in Politics, Not Performance

The Department of Education was not born out of a national consensus on educational reform—it was born of political calculation.

In the late 1970s, President Jimmy Carter faced mounting political pressure: the Iran Hostage Crisis, inflation, and energy shortages had tanked his approval ratings. Carter needed support from major constituencies—none more influential than the National Education Association (NEA), the nation’s largest teachers’ union.

The NEA had been lobbying for a cabinet-level Department of Education for decades. Prior administrations had resisted the idea, seeing education as a state and local responsibility under the 10th Amendment. But Carter was desperate. In exchange for the NEA’s endorsement in the 1980 election, he granted their wish.

One Democratic congressman anonymously admitted at the time:

“The idea of an Education Department is a bad one. But it’s NEA’s top priority… most of us simply don’t need the aggravation of taking them on.”

The department was pushed through Congress despite skepticism, even from within Carter’s party. Its creation was not driven by research or demand for improved student outcomes; it was driven by electoral calculus and union politics.

This origin story matters. It explains why the department has always leaned more toward satisfying political interests than producing results in the classroom.

Bureaucratic Expansion and Administrative Costs

The Department of Education now employs over 4,000 staff members and controls an annual budget of more than $268 billion. Of that, a significant portion funds salaries, regulatory compliance, and federal grant management, not classroom instruction.

At the same time, school districts across the country have expanded their bureaucracies. From 1980 to 2020, the number of non-teaching staff in schools grew by over 700%, far outpacing the growth in student enrollment or teachers.

More administrators, more paperwork, more compliance—but no measurable gains in academic outcomes. In many schools, there are more counselors, coordinators, and assistant principals than math and science teachers.

This isn’t just inefficient; it’s actively harmful. Every dollar spent on administration is a dollar not spent on teaching, curriculum development, or student support.

Controversial Use of Federal Funds

Critics have raised alarm over how the Department of Education allocates funding—particularly to initiatives seen as ideological rather than academic.

Consider the $1.98 million grant awarded to Framingham State University to produce an open-source textbook described as providing “a lens for understanding the evolving definition of ‘family’ through socially constructed and ecological theory frameworks.”
(Source: Framingham.edu)

While the goal of inclusion may be commendable, such expenditures seem disconnected from the core educational crises of literacy and numeracy.

Additionally, federal money has supported school programs centered on “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI), climate change curricula, gender identity education, and critical theory studies. While supporters argue these issues are important in a modern society, opponents claim they displace essential academic content, introduce ideological bias, and polarize communities.

Federal overreach into curricular content has turned schools into battlegrounds for culture wars—undermining trust in public education.

Administrative Growth vs. Classroom Impact

As school systems have added layers of non-teaching staff, student outcomes have remained flat or declined.

A Brookings Institution study showed that while administrative costs ballooned between 2000 and 2020, test scores remained stagnant. Many of the highest-performing schools in America operate with leaner budgets and fewer administrators.

Meanwhile, teacher burnout is rising, classroom sizes are increasing, and districts struggle to recruit qualified STEM teachers. Federal mandates often require schools to meet reporting, training, and policy compliance targets that have little to do with actual instruction.

The imbalance is glaring: the people tasked with teaching students are under-resourced, while those managing policies far removed from classrooms enjoy job security and generous salaries.

 Reform or Abolition: What’s the Right Path Forward?

If the Department of Education hasn’t improved education—and was never designed to do so—what should be done?

Reform is a difficult proposition. The Department is now a vast bureaucracy deeply embedded in political alliances. Any effort to reduce its size or power is met with resistance from teachers’ unions and aligned politicians.

An alternative is decentralization: return full authority to states and localities, where communities are closer to students and more responsive to parental input. Federal education dollars could be delivered as block grants, allowing states flexibility in how to allocate resources and assess success.

Some propose a “streamlining” compromise—keeping a small federal office focused on civil rights compliance and national data collection, while eliminating most of its regulatory and funding functions.

Conclusion: A Time for Bold Reassessment

The Department of Education was founded on political motivations, not educational necessity. It has since grown into a massive institution with questionable impact on student learning, even as performance declines and public trust erodes.

Billions of dollars are spent annually. But instead of focusing on math, reading, and science—the essentials for economic and civic competence—the Department funds ideological experiments, fuels bureaucracy, and enforces top-down mandates disconnected from local realities.

If the goal is to improve student learning, perhaps it’s time to reimagine—or even dismantle—the structure that has presided over decades of decline. Reform may not go far enough. The boldest, and arguably most responsible, action may be to phase out the Department of Education altogether and return power to the people most invested in their children’s futures: parents, teachers, and local communities.

Because if the Department of Education doesn’t serve students, the real question isn’t whether we need to fix it.
The real question is: Why do we need it at all?

Watch video here: https://www.prageru.com/video/do-we-need-the-department-of-education