Multiple Republican presidential candidates made it clear at this week’s debate that the Department of Education is in danger if they are elected.
“Let’s shut down the head of the snake, the Department of Education,” Vivek Ramaswamy said. “Take that $80 billion, put it in the hands of parents across this country.”
Conservatives see the department, which has more than 4,400 employees and in its current form dates back to 1979 after first being established in 1867, as a prime example of Washington’s meddling in Americans’ lives. The time has come to “shut down the Federal Department of Education,” former Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday.
But what would it mean to actually shutter the massive agency?
How could the department be eliminated?
Killing the Department of Education (DOE) would be easier said than done.
Conservatives have said since the creation of the department they want to get rid of it. From President Ronald Reagan and his Education secretary to President Trump and his own, Republicans have decried the department’s existence but failed to abolish it.
That is because the decision to do so is not only up to the president and would have to go through Congress.
“There would have to be some legislation to specifically outline this, but I do think it would need to have the support of the executive branch and, obviously, this is a Cabinet-level agency, so I think having the president — would have to take a leadership role and help to make sure that the proposal is carefully crafted,” said Jonathan Butcher, the Will Skillman senior research fellow in education policy at The Heritage Foundation, which supports nixing the DOE.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) proposed such legislation in 2021 and reintroduced it earlier this year.
“Unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., should not be in charge of our children’s intellectual and moral development,” Massie said two years ago. “States and local communities are best positioned to shape curricula that meet the needs of their students. Schools should be accountable. Parents have the right to choose the most appropriate educational opportunity for their children, including home school, public school or private school.”
DOE did not respond to The Hill’s request for comment.
DOE’s duties would be absorbed by other federal agencies
DOE has an enormous number of responsibilities, including handling student loans, investigating complaints against schools and tracking education progress across the country.
None of the 2024 candidates during Wednesday’s debate detailed how they would handle eliminating it, but conservatives have longed to see many of its tasks either completely eliminated or absorbed into other departments.
“For example, the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Education. I think that any duplicate responsibilities that it shares with the Department of Justice should be eliminated, and then the rest of that office should go to the Department of Justice,” Butcher said.
They want the largest amount of control at the highest level. If the federal level doesn’t work, they’ll dismantle it as far as possible and instead reign at the state level.
That’s also why they are against “big government” - it’s always the government above their highest one that’s problematic. Never the one they are at.
They don’t really want that federal control. They want to pretend they didn’t lose the Civil War and have the federal government be responsible for international relations and military defense only.
This will allow them to pass whatever laws they want in their state, with effects I’d bet you can predict pretty easily, and depressingly.
Nah, they absolutely want federal control. Just federal control that’s only MAGA nonsense. Look at what happened with abortion. First it was about “states rights” and now they want to make it illegal for residents of one state to do a legal thing in another state and make abortion illegal nation wide. It’s never about “states rights”. It’s always about forcing their agenda on everyone no matter what.
That doesn’t fit together with their legislature whenever they are in power. They seem to like federal control when they have it.
But why don’t they stick to state governments? Why do they seem to use whatever power they have if they are in control of a city, a state or the federal government? Why do they not behave in real life the way you describe they do?
Most of the federal control they impose is just tied to the basic concepts of “white Christian theocracy” and not the actual governance.
As they fundamentally don’t see non-white/Christian as equal or American, it kind of fills a grey space in their ideology as to federal control.
But that’s also governance. Things don’t stop being governance because we disagree with what is being done. They use the power they have to push through their White Christian theocracy.
And yet they use their federal control. They don’t leave things as-is while they are in power.
I assure you that I think policies I don’t like count as governance, which is why I’ve been involved in both lobbying and local politics my entire adult life.
Not sure what you’re arguing against, since I’m talking about their general philosophy. That level of governance is assumed within this philosophy because they do not consider those different from them as truly American.
I’m arguing against your point “they don’t want federal control”, because it’s wrong. They try to get as much federal control as possible. You yourself said they use the control they have to push White Christian theocracy.
I do not understand why you repeat that they don’t want control. It’s a tired talking point of conservatives and easily disproven by looking at their governance. If they don’t want federal control, why do they always try to get federal control, and use it when they have it?
You could convince me by showing me that they don’t want federal control from their actions. Show me a recent time they had federal control, and used that to reduce the amount of federal control on a topic they want controlled.
This is a manufactured argument about nothing.
No examples? Thought so. It’s best not to repeat conservative talking points, especially when they are wrong.