For any complex system to excel, there must be a dedicated central hub, indispensable for sharing strategy, monitoring performance, and sharing a common direction and accountability.

Kennedy’s death came before he could formally request the establishment of a non-intrusive, central federal hub with the mission to monitor and independently help shape K–12 student performance within the states.

Nearly 17 years after Kennedy’s assassination, Congress established the U.S. Department of Education—putatively a central management hub for education-related matters. However, it largely mirrored the structure of the Office of Education it replaced.

Unfortunately, as with the Office of Education, Kennedy’s overarching concern—K–12 student performance—was not explicitly addressed. Arguably, based on NAEP assessments, this omission has contributed to the effective forfeiture of millions of K–12 students each year—whether they graduate below NAEP proficiency or fail to graduate at all.

Despite the high-stakes nature of U.S. K–12 student performance, the newly established DOE hub’s founding legislation created catch-all for assorted education programs—important in themselves, but distractions from a singular mission to elevate nationwide K–12 results.

Compounding the issue, the role of Secretary of Education—potentially the most critical position in the United States for elevating K-12 student performance, was left to perfunctory political appointment by incoming U.S. Presidents—perhaps awarded as a political favor. 

That is, should the ultimate measure of DOE performance be national-scale K–12 student performance—supported by state leadership and verified through hard-number metrics?

To transform the DOE into an unparalleled national asset for K–12 student performance, a Congressional rewrite of the Department’s governing framework could consider the following performance-based concepts:

• Mission. Consider legislating an express K–12 student performance mission with the objective of pursuing sustained, cumulative, and measurable gains in student outcomes nationwide—verified through hard-number metrics.
• Structure. Consider reducing distractions from the DOE’s K–12 student performance mission by reevaluating existing program responsibilities, potentially returning selected programs to their original federal agencies where appropriate and returning state-level administrative responsibilities to the states consistent with constitutional authority.
• Alternative structure. Alternatively, Congressional legislation could retain current DOE functions and the existing method of selecting the Secretary of Education while dividing the DOE into two divisions.
• Division I. Maintain current DOE functions under existing governance, including continued presidential appointment of the Secretary.
• Division II. Create a standalone, high-innovation division dedicated exclusively to K–12 student performance. Division II could operate under performance expectations tied to nationwide hard-number metrics, other factors selected for evaluation—and a Panel.

• Leadership selection for the Panel and Division II Secretary. Consider whether Division II would be best served by an independent Secretary selected through a Panel process rather than through traditional appointment methods. Panel members—hypothetically, individuals such as Rene Haas—need not come from any particular discipline, credential, or traditional career path and may offer transformational perspectives in selecting a Division II Secretary, who in turn may bring similar qualities to the role.

  Authority and accountability. The Division II Secretary could retain broad discretion—including innovation authority—to pursue the Division II mission while remaining subject to periodic Panel review.

• Independent Panel clarification points. Congress could consider establishing an independent third-party Panel, operating outside the DOE, to evaluate Division II leadership and performance. Subject to legislated authorities, oversight mechanisms, and safeguards, the Panel could be empowered to appoint, review, replace, and potentially reappoint Division II Secretaries as strategic priorities and performance outcomes evolve.

The states have failed. That is, collectively, a decade before Congress created the flawed DOE, K–12 student performance across the states left many students unable to meet even the NAEP Basic achievement level or their own state standards. The creation of the DOE—as legislated—had no effect on this failure.

Thus, the choice: abolish the DOE, re-legislate it, or do nothing.

Regarding K–12 student performance, the default option is to leave the DOE as it is, rely on the states to do the best they can, and wait for a future Congress to re-legislate the Department. However, the downside is that during this waiting period roughly 50% of the nation’s K–12 students may graduate unable to read, write, or perform math at minimum proficiency.

The consequence is profound. A demographic loss of this magnitude—arguably even greater—weakens every sector of the nation, including the skilled trades, higher education, and large-scale industrial production, including advanced mega-factories.

An aside: Be cautious of the assumption that higher-performing NAEP states have discovered the secret to educational success. While they outperform lower-performing states, some benefit from demographic and cultural advantages. (Next title: The elephant in the room.)

Some states consistently outperform others in K–12 education. While state leaders may credit their policies, the reality may be that high-performing states reflect populations with a disproportionately stronger cultural emphasis on education.

Less often acknowledged is that low-performing schools may persist even within high-performing states—and that low-performing states may still contain high-performing schools.

For U.S. student performance to become globally competitive, every high-performing K–12 school must achieve substantially better results than it does today—and every low-performing school must improve rapidly until its outcomes begin to overlap, and increasingly overlap, with those of higher-performing schools.

If outcomes are to improve at national scale, something more may be required: innovation.

A temporary phenomenon that at first appears permanent

Traditionally lower-performing K–12 states have at times shown improved performance as students and teachers respond to the heightened attention surrounding a newly introduced initiative—regardless of the initiative itself. For example, a highly publicized effort accompanied by sustained media attention could temporarily increase engagement even if the underlying intervention is relatively modest.

The Hawthorne effect is the term commonly used to describe this phenomenon. The concept originated from studies conducted during the 1920s and 1930s at Hawthorne Works, a factory operated by Western Electric near Chicago, in which worker output appeared to increase in response to heightened observation and attention directed toward employees and their work environment. Once the added attention diminished, output often returned toward prior levels.

The implication for K–12 education is that gains following a new initiative may not necessarily represent lasting structural improvement. Accordingly, there must be ongoing hard-number testing and performance assessment.

John F. Kennedy (president from 1961 until his assassination on November 22, 1963) advocated a rigorous, top-priority focus on K–12 student performance, while control of K–12 education remained with the states. (Many of his proposals, however, were voted down or slow-walked by Congress.)

65 years from his inauguration until today:

No national priority focus on K–12 student performance. When John F. Kennedy took office—and despite his efforts throughout his presidency—the United States lacked both a serious central management hub for K–12 student performance (only the Office of Education existed) and any national standard for K–12 education. Although some states maintained their own benchmarks, those standards varied widely, leaving the nation without a unified framework for measuring K–12 student achievement.

Then came the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Six years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, NAEP, in 1969, was first administered nationwide to provide a consistent benchmark of student performance across all 50 states.

NAEP results confirmed widespread K–12 failure nationwide. Viewed collectively across the states, a significant portion of U.S. human capital was being lost, with students graduating from K–12 unable to read, write, or do math at minimum proficiency.

The reason is structural. The U.S. Department of Education was not established with a focus on K–12 student performance.

Nearly 17 years after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy—and thus without his voice—Congress enacted the Department of Education Organization Act.

Jimmy Carter (in office from 1977 to 1981) signed the Act into law on October 17, 1979. This legislation formally established the U.S. Department of Education as the nation’s central coordination hub for education.

However, the legislation bore little resemblance to Kennedy’s vision of giving top-priority focus to K–12 student performance. Far from Kennedy’s urgent concern, the Carter-signed legislation did not even mention national K–12 student performance. (Instead, the newly created Department was structured primarily as an aggregator and administrator of education programs.)

Remarkably, this flawed 1979 DOE structure has remained in place for decades, despite NAEP alarms.

Ronald Reagan (president from 1981 to 1989) campaigned on eliminating the U.S. Department of Education. Upon taking office, he attempted to terminate it; Congress rejected the effort.

George W. Bush (President from 2001 to 2009) did not articulate a clear position on the U.S. Department of Education or its founding legislation. However, on January 8, 2002, he signed the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) into law—ushering in a disruptive period for K–12 education that yielded no sustained improvement in NAEP results and resulted in a lost decade for many students.

Barack Obama (president from 2009 to 2017) likewise did not articulate an actionable position on the structure or purpose of the Department of Education. However, on December 10, 2015, he signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) into law, replacing the failed No Child Left Behind (NCLB) framework. (ESSA, in turn, was followed by a decade of essentially flat NAEP performance, during which tens of millions of students continued to founder in the K–12 pipeline.)

Donald J. Trump, likely mirroring the same broad bipartisan frustration within the United States Congress, recognizes that the United States Department of Education—having remained largely unchanged for decades—has presided over persistently poor NAEP K–12 student performance outcomes, leading Trump to advocate eliminating the Department.

With a nod to two presidents, the solution is so simple—and so noncontroversial—that it is almost boring: Congress could re-legislate the Department of Education into an entity that both Donald J. Trump might be willing to accept and John F. Kennedy might have embraced—by giving the agency a singular, overriding, all-but-exclusive focus on K–12 student performance, while making separate administrative arrangements for all other education-related programs, which remain important in their own right.

Both major political parties—neither more than the other—champion national K–12 success. By working together, and only by working together, today’s Members of Congress can do what no previous Congress has done: re-legislate the U.S. Department of Education with a singular K-12 student performance focus.

Alternatively, the DOE could be left in place as currently legislated. U.S. Presidents could then use executive orders to implement short-term initiatives. However, governing by executive order carries inherent instability, with policy reversals that may ultimately come at the expense of sustained nationwide K–12 student performance improvement.

Once the DOE is re-legislated, be prepared to innovate—perhaps by considering funding for the HSe4Metrics platform.