The debate over the U.S. Department of Education has reached a fever pitch. With the current administration calling for its elimination, the country is once again reaching for a familiar political reflex: if something isn’t working, tear it down.
But before we grab the wrecking ball, it’s worth asking a better question: what if the problem isn’t that the Department of Education exists—but that it was never designed to do what America actually needs it to do?
President John F. Kennedy—assassinated 17 years before Congress created the department, which was later signed into law by President Jimmy Carter—would likely have been both troubled and astonished by the absence of any central focus on K–12 student performance (even if he didn’t use that exact language). Instead, the department was built primarily to consolidate and administer education programs. Each of those programs may be important on its own. Together, however, they created an agency focused on managing inputs rather than transforming outcomes.
Kennedy might have called for the department’s elimination. More likely, he would have demanded something far more ambitious: a fundamental rewrite of its mission to prioritize measurable K–12 student performance.
The Problem Everyone Agrees On
Here’s the rare point of agreement across the political spectrum: our current approach to K–12 education is not delivering the results our children deserve.
Long before the Department of Education existed, Congress created the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Over decades, NAEP has quietly documented a sobering reality. Today, more than half of U.S. high school graduates fail to reach minimum proficiency in reading, writing, or mathematics.
That’s not a partisan statistic. It’s a national alarm bell.
Looking at this track record, the current administration has concluded that the solution is to eliminate the Department of Education entirely and “return control to the states.” It’s a clean political narrative. It sounds decisive. It also rests on a widespread misunderstanding of how K–12 education actually works.
The Inconvenient Truth About State Control
Here’s the irony that often gets lost in the shouting: the federal government has never had direct operational control over state K–12 education.
States have always held that authority. State boards of education, state legislatures, and local school districts make the real decisions. The Department of Education never ran classrooms. It never hired teachers. It never controlled curriculum.
When NAEP results revealed massive underperformance across states—including the most underserved communities—Congress created the Department of Education hoping it could help fix the problem. But despite the name, the department was never structured around student performance. In that sense, the label “Department of Education” became a misnomer.
So what exactly would “returning control to the states” accomplish?
Nothing. States already have control.
What states don’t have is something far more important: access to scalable innovation capable of generating a significant, sustained rise in national K–12 student performance—verified in hard numbers—across a range of metrics, including NAEP assessments. That’s where the federal government has real, legitimate potential to add value.
A Quick and Lasting Fix: Refocus the Department—Don’t Eliminate It
Properly redesigned, the Department of Education could become something entirely different: a national performance engine rather than a program administrator.
Imagine a department whose primary mission is not paperwork, compliance, or grant processing—but helping states improve measurable student outcomes.
Here’s what that could look like.
First, remove the long list of program-administration responsibilities that currently consume the department. Many of these programs existed elsewhere in the federal government before the DOE was created. They could be returned to those agencies or housed separately.
Second, mandate that the department focus exclusively on K–12 student performance outcomes rather than administrative procedures and compliance checklists.
Third, make the mission explicit: develop, test, measure, and scale innovations that demonstrably improve student performance in hard numbers.
Alternatively, Congress could formally split the department into two separate entities:
- One agency focused on administrative services, compliance, and legacy program management.
- Another dedicated exclusively to K-12 student performance innovation, performance measurement, and outcomes improvement.
Congress could even legislate two distinct secretaries: a Secretary of Education responsible for national K–12 student performance, and a Secretary of Education Programs responsible for program administration. Separate staffs. Separate missions. Clear accountability.
The intent would not be punitive or personal. Anyone seeking the role of Secretary of Education in a reimagined department would do so with a clear understanding: transforming hard-number K–12 student performance—something never before achieved at national scale—comes before personal job security. A performance review panel would retain the authority to expedite the replacement even the most committed secretary when progress falls short. In that sense, the role would resemble wartime leadership—where even highly respected generals are sometimes replaced, not because of failure of effort, but because the mission itself must come first.
Most importantly, the Department of Education transformation should happen through bipartisan legislation that explicitly defines the federal role as one that serves states rather than directs them. The Secretary of Education—whose longevity is at stake—should be empowered to sponsor and test innovations that directly support K–12 students and younger learners while verifying results through nationally recognized metrics such as NAEP.
In effect, the department would become a national laboratory for educational innovation: a hub for measuring what works and making high-impact tools available to states that want them.
What Federal-Scale, State-Friendly Innovation Looks Like
Here’s the beauty of this approach: innovation can be national in scale without being intrusive.
Think of it as building powerful tools that states can voluntarily adopt rather than mandates they’re forced to follow.
Platforms like HSe4Metrics illustrate the idea. These types of tools are designed to replace decades of failing assessment outcomes with data-driven performance improvement. A refocused Department of Education could champion exactly this kind of innovation: systems that measure what works, identify effective strategies, and scale success—without dictating curriculum, hiring decisions, or classroom practices.
The federal government is uniquely positioned to invest in large-scale research and development, run controlled pilots across diverse populations, and analyze performance patterns across regions and demographics. That’s where federal involvement adds value—not in controlling states, but in building shared innovation infrastructure.
The Path Forward
We stand at a crossroads.
One path leads to elimination—discarding institutional capacity that, if properly focused, could become transformational. The other path leads to defending a bloated status quo that serves bureaucracy better than students.
There is a third path.
It requires congressional courage to rewrite the department’s enabling legislation. It requires clarity about what the federal role should—and should not—be. And it requires a shift in mindset: measuring success not by dollars spent or programs launched, but by hard-number improvements in student outcomes.
The question isn’t whether America needs a central hub for educational innovation and measurement. We absolutely do.
The real question is whether we’re willing to reform what exists instead of reflexively tearing it down or blindly defending it.
Our children deserve better than political theater. They deserve a Department of Education focused on results.
Join the Effort
Join us in transforming the future of #K12Education. Urge a refocus of the Department of Education toward a legislated priority on K-12 student performance—where innovation like HSe4Metrics can serve as a lifeline, regardless of where students rank on the NAEP scale or how schools are currently rated.
You can make meaningful social impact by supporting performance-driven education innovation. Only one federal agency sponsor is needed—preferably the Department of Education—potentially partnered with a civically minded corporation through a public-private sponsorship model.
Let’s reimagine public education and invest in the nation’s future.
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