Op-Ed For better schools, abolish the politicized Department of Education and give local districts more control
History has proved the critics right. It’s time for the department to be dismantled. It has done some good, especially in pointing out education inequity. But more often it has served political, not educational, interests.
In fact, the Department of Education was created by President Carter in part as a gift to the National Education Assn., for the union’s early support of his candidacy. Politics was the department’s original sin, and that reality has gotten only worse.
Although President Reagan opposed the department’s existence, he recognized its political utility. His secretary of Education, William J. Bennett, used the influence of the office as a weapon in the culture wars by promoting “traditional” curriculums. Betsy DeVos, President-elect Trump’s choice for secretary, is likely to continue its politicization. She has a track record of advancing school vouchers and charter schools. It seems probable that she will advocate for a privatization agenda, no matter the views of local communities.
This politicization of education is most clearly evident in the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act and the department’s enforcement of its provisions. This measure — a signature part of President George W. Bush’s legacy, with an assist from Sen. Edward Kennedy — required the restructuring and potentially the closing of an entire school if all its students in specific subgroups (for example, minority, economically disadvantaged, or special ed students) did not achieve proficiency on reading and math tests. It rejected the idea that poverty, students’ home lives or other factors outside the schoolhouse might contribute to low achievement. Such suggestions were just “excuses” for bad teaching.
Of course, effective teachers, good reading and math skills, and periodic student assessments are important. But the No Child Left Behind Act had obvious failings. Universal proficiency was simply an impossible, utopian mandate. And it was a fiction that students’ life circumstances had no effect on their learning.
Rather than admit the impossibility of proficiency for all students, the Education Department took a hard line. Secretary Rod Paige declared that his “oath of office” required him to “enforce the law.” A few months after No Child Left Behind passed, he named 8,600 schools that failed to meet the law’s requirements. Unless they improved, the department would sanction them. In the face of these threats, districts slashed budgets in nontested subjects, like art and music, and students sat for exam after exam in math and reading.
