Show-Me Institute analysts typically focus on Missouri education issues. Yet, with the present debates about dismantling the federal Department of Education, what is happening in D.C. deserves a bit of attention. My words, however, can add very little to what former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos wrote in The Free Press. In a long-form opinion piece, DeVos explains why the department DoE deserves to be shuttered. Referring to the Department of Education, she writes:
So what does it do? It shuffles money around; adds unnecessary requirements and political agendas via its grants; and then passes the buck when it comes time to assess if any of that adds value. Here’s how it works: Congress appropriates funding for education; last year, it totaled nearly $80 billion. The department’s bureaucrats take in those billions, add strings and red tape, peel off a percentage to pay for themselves, and then send it down to state education agencies. Many of them do a version of the same and then send it to our schools. The schools must then pay first for administrators to manage all the requirements that have been added along the way. After all that, the money makes it to the classroom to help a student learn—maybe.
In other words, the Department of Education is functionally a middleman. And like most middlemen, it doesn’t add value. It merely adds cost and complexity.
DeVos concludes with a call to close the Department of Education. I encourage you to read her full piece. They are strong words coming from someone who once ran the agency.
