President Trump just signed an executive order aimed at abolishing the Department of Education.
The Democrats and the teachers unions that control them are constantly gaslighting about the plan. But they're fearmongering against a proposal that isn't even on the table.
The main talking point pushed by opponents of ending the Education Department is that students and teachers need federal funding. But President Trump, Linda McMahon, and allies have advocated not to defund education but to instead send the money back to the states.
The main proposal to do away with the Department of Education in Congress is a bill authored by Senator Mike Rounds, R-S.D., called the "Returning Education to Our States Act." It aligns with the Trump Administration's goal by using the Treasury Department to send education funding back to the states in the form of block grants.
If anything, states would have more money to spend on education since less of the funding would be wasted on thousands of useless bureaucrats in D.C. States would also have more local control to spend the money as they see fit to support the education of their constituents. And more money could make its way into the classroom if less of it is spent dealing with federal mandates.
The other straw man argument put forth by the teachers union is that students with special needs would lose federal benefits. They similarly argue students would lose civil rights protections.
But the main bill to abolish the Department of Education addresses both of those concerns. The programs for students with special needs would move to the Department of Health and Human Services and civil rights enforcement would be handled by the Department of Justice.
In fact, during the signing of the executive order, President Trump said that Title 1 funding and special needs programs would be “preserved in full and redistributed to various other agencies and departments.”
President Trump announced the day after the signing that “special needs and all of the nutrition programs” will move to the Department of Health and Human Services. He also said that student loans will be handled by the Small Business Administration and that the entire portfolio is “coming out of the Department of Education immediately.”
Pell Grants for college would move under the Treasury Department, according to the bill introduced by Senator Mike Rounds.
The Department of Education is arguably unconstitutional. The word "education" is not in the U.S. Constitution and therefore might be a violation of the 10th Amendment. It was created in 1979 as a political payoff by Jimmy Carter to the teachers unions. Since then, America's education spending has ballooned while outcomes haven't gotten any better.
Time's up. The Department of Education has failed.
The proposal to get rid of the Department of Education is not as disruptive as the Democrats make it out to be. They're either uninformed or fearmongering to generate campaign material against their political opponents, or both. Either way, they aren't contending with the facts.
If anything, the actual proposal to abolish the Department of Education doesn't go far enough. The federal government shouldn't be involved in the student loan business and states would do a better job allocating their own resources. Instead of block-granting the money back to the states, the federal government should just let us keep more of our own money by lowering taxes.
At the same time, for better or worse, we don't live in utopia. That proposal isn't on the table. The Returning Education to Our States Act is, however, a realistic solution and a step in the right direction that should be able to garner bipartisan support.
Let's hope, because Republicans would need seven Democrats to vote with them to achieve the 60-vote three-fifths majority required to overcome a filibuster in the Senate.
The problem is blind allegiance to political party causes Senate Democrats to oppose common sense legislation proposed by Republicans. For example, Senate Democrats unanimously voted against the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, an issue than enjoys 80% support nationally.
At some point, reckless partisanship should cost politicians at the ballot box. We'll see if Democrats pay the price for opposing the will of the people in 2026.
Maybe then President Trump will have enough votes to do something in his final two years in office that even Ronald Reagan couldn't accomplish: get rid of the Department of Education once and for all and Make Education Great Again.
Mr. DeAngelis is a senior fellow at the American Culture Project and a visiting fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research. He is the national bestselling author of “The Parent Revolution: Rescuing Your Kids from the Radicals Ruining Our Schools.”
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