End it? Or with little effort, leverage it into an epic asset?
As legislated, the U.S. Department of Education (herein, DOE) is fatally flawed
So change the legislation
First a basic: Only the states have ever had control of K–12 education. Upon taking office as President, John F. Kennedy was determined to confront the states’ alarming K–12 student performance results—not an issue and fine with Kennedy, the constitutional reality was that the states had full K-12 education control. The U.S. Department of Education, created nearly 17 years after his assassination, likewise did not have—and has never had—control over K–12 education.
Whether the devastating K–12 student performance crisis across the states was driven by racial inequality, income disparity, or a lack of educational priority, John F. Kennedy believed Congress needed to focus on remaking what we refer to herein as “K–12 student performance.”
During Kennedy’s presidency, the Office of Education existed as a subdivision of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). However, the responsibilities of the so-called “Office of Education” did not even mention K–12 student performance—even as a secondary objective. Rather, all focus lay elsewhere. This lack of foresight would later be repeated when Congress created the U.S. Department of Education.
Upon taking office, Kennedy expressed to Congress his dismay that K–12 student performance across the states was in dire condition—a concern later confirmed by the creation of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Act following his assassination. His death came before he could formally request the establishment of a non-intrusive, central federal hub to monitor K–12 performance within the states. (Congress had already been regularly rejecting many of his education-related proposals, slowing his K–12 efforts.)
Nearly 17 years after Kennedy’s assassination, Congress ultimately established a central management hub. Fatally flawed, this new U.S. Department of Education was in the image of the Office of Education
Despite the high-stakes nature of U.S. K–12 performance, the DOE hub’s founding legislation was a catch-all for assorted education programs—important in themselves, but distractions from a singular mission to elevate nationwide K–12 results. With respect to K–12 student performance, the DOE hub proved no more effective than its predecessor, the Office of Education.
Moreover, the role of Secretary of Education—arguably one of the most critical positions in the country—was left to routine political appointment, perhaps as a favor, without any requirement for the exceptional talent needed to deliver a dramatic, hard-number turnaround in K-12 student performance.
Remaking the DOE into an unparalleled facilitator of national K-12 student performance
Remove the DOE’s expansive list of program-based functions, returning those programs—where appropriate—to the federal agencies in which they were formerly housed. Return state administrative duties to the states, consistent with their constitutional authority over K–12 education. Codify the leadership function of the Secretary of Education, aligned with the demands of driving measurable, nationwide performance improvement. Ensure that the U.S. Department of Education hub supports all 50 states in their independent, self-directed K–12 efforts—rather than directing or constraining them. At the same time, the hub should support and initiate profound innovation aimed squarely at improving K–12 student performance. For example—and the purpose of this explainer website—the DOE should test the HSe4Metrics platform. The final arbiter must be hard-number metrics results, as the states and the DOE work together.
Click the + to see more and the — to see less.
In a mega organization, a central coordination hub is vital; thus, if the DOE is terminated, a replacement will be inevitable
Central Monitoring Hub—how can any complex system be expected to excel without a dedicated central hub for monitoring—by whatever name? Across highly productive organizations, a central hub is indispensable for sharing strategy, monitoring performance, and highlighting accountability.
The issue, therefore, is not whether a central hub should exist—it should. The issue is that the existing U.S. Department of Education hub was poorly legislated and fatally flawed from its inception. Its foundational legislation failed to assign a preeminent mission: remaking nationwide K–12 student performance. Instead, the DOE was structured as a catch-all administrator for a wide array of education programs, misdirecting strategic focus away from indispensable national K-12 outcomes.
That legislative failure, however, can be corrected—whether through expediated bipartisan congressional action, executive action consistent with statutory authority, or a combination of both.
Accordingly, the solution is not to abolish the Department of Education, but to amend and remake it. If the DOE were terminated outright, a replacement would inevitably be required, as future generations of K–12 students—like those in decades past—continue to be lost to underperformance. Delaying reform until a future replacement emerges would only postpone a critical boost to U.S. competitiveness, both nationally and globally.
Ideally, a re-legislated DOE hub would function as a standalone entity. Less ideally, it could be housed within an existing federal structure—such as one of the 15 cabinet-level departments (including the U.S. Department of Labor) or one of the nation’s independent agencies, such as the National Science Foundation.
Importantly, no control authority is required. The DOE hub need not govern state K–12 systems. Its authority would be limited to the right to request and receive K–12 performance data from the states. On all matters of K–12 policy, opportunity, and innovation, the hub would collaborate with each state, with states retaining full discretion over their participation and incurring no penalty for electing not to participate.
A newly legislated DOE hub—inspired by John F. Kennedy’s vision for national K–12 performance and informed by decades of technological advancement—must be lean, well-led, and mission-driven, focused squarely on remaking K–12 outcomes nationwide. Success would be measured through hard-number metrics results, including assessments such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
Note: Although the existing DOE has been misguided in focus, it has accumulated a vast and valuable trove of education data. Even if that data was not effectively used to improve K–12 student performance, it cannot be discarded. Any re-legislated DOE might stand to benefit from this legacy data.
DOE at a crossroads: abolish it or reform its leadership and mission
The states had failed. 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.
Thus, the DOE was created—but founded on misguided legislation, it failed. Decades of priceless K–12 opportunity were squandered, a loss that can never be recovered. More than 100 million students graduated without the lifetime—for many, potentially profound—advantage they deserved, while tens of millions more never graduated at all.
Legislative action: amend, codify, and establish parameters
Amend and codify the DOE’s mission to deliver sustained, cumulative, and dramatic gains in K–12 student performance nationwide—verified by hard-number metrics.
Establish clear parameters for the Secretary of Education:
- Independent oversight of the Secretary’s performance by an entity external to the DOE
Authority for immediate removal of the Secretary, without prior notice, if performance is deemed unacceptable—paired with continuing authority to recruit and appoint successors until the right individual is found. (As the expression goes for NFL head coaches, “Not For Long.”)
- A formal mandate to pursue and sustain visionary, results-driven leadership
Snapshots in time—and a bipartisan finish
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.)
No National Priority K–12 Focus. At the time John F. Kennedy took office—and despite his efforts throughout his presidency—the United States lacked both a serious central management hub (there existed only the Office of Education) and any national standard for K–12 education. While some states maintained their own performance benchmarks, those standards varied widely from state to state, leaving the nation without a unified framework to gauge K–12 student achievement.
Then came the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Six years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, in 1969, NAEP 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 poorly created. Nearly 17 years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy—and thus without his voice—Congress passed 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 a 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 (who served as 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 (served as President from 2001 to 2009) did not articulate a clear position on the 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—along with overwhelming majorities in United States Congress—understands that the U.S. Department of Education has left National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) outcomes in disarray, with quality-of-life consequences that may persist for generations. At the same time, Congress recognizes that the federal government must not impinge on state control of K–12 education.
Almost boring
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 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 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 United States Department of Education (DOE).
Alternatively—though far less permanent—a current or future U.S. President could leave the DOE in place, as presently legislated, and use executive orders to implement short-term reforms. 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.
Repeating the cycle: scaling back the DOE to see—once again—what the states can do
Remember: despite the understandable impulse to abolish the DOE and rely solely on the states, no state (see “The elephant in the room,” below) has ever achieved the urgently needed, year-over-year, corrective, multi-point gains on NAEP, nor on the SAT or ACT, or international assessments such as PISA and TIMSS. Across the states as a whole, roughly 50% of K–12 graduates cannot read, write, or do math at minimum proficiency.
And beware: momentary gains—such as the much-publicized Texas Miracle frequently cited by George W. Bush—can be misleading and may have influenced the decision to launch No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Transitory improvements, even when they extend beyond a single testing cycle, often spark hope and celebration—only to prove short-lived, eventually slipping back within the margin of error. U.S. K–12 education does not need fleeting, marginal gains; it requires sustained, significant, cumulative multi-point advances. Without progress at that scale, how can U.S. student performance ever meaningfully recover?
No sign of it. For decades since the inception of the existing DOE hub, there has been abject failure to produce dramatic—or even modest—improvement in nationwide K–12 student performance, as exposed by hard-number evidence such as NAEP results.
The nationwide K–12 penalty is clear: tens of millions of K–12 graduates are subjected to greater hardship and elevated socioeconomic risk, with those consequences extending to their children as well. A demographic blow of this magnitude weakens every sector of the nation, including the skilled trades, higher education, and large-scale industrial production, including mega factories.
The elephant in the room
Some states consistently outperform others in K–12 education. While state leaders may credit their policies, the reality is that high-performing states often reflect populations with a strong cultural emphasis on education. The fact is that even within these high-performing states, low-performing schools persist.
For U.S. student performance to be globally competitive, every high-performing K–12 school must achieve substantially better results than it does today—and every low-performing school must rapidly improve until its outcomes begin to overlap with those of higher-performing schools.
As a matter of writer’s discretion within this website, the commonly recognized abbreviation “DOE” is used to refer to the U.S. Department of Education—rather than the official “ED”—despite “DOE” also being the abbreviation for the Department of Energy.
Key code 178, 179, 188