Pros and Cons of the Department of Education

In the United States, the 10th amendment gives those rights not prohibited to the states or given to the federal government, which are reserved to the States. One element of the American Government that falls under the 10th Amendment is the prospect of education. In the United States of America, education is primarily left to the devices of the states to determine educational standards and practices. However, there is a United States Department of Education that plays an important role in the education system and has the potential to increase its role to greatly benefit the future of the American people. The department of education can do this by providing block funding for programs in schools to better prepare and inform students about the workforce and more effectively teach them practical knowledge.

The United States Department of Education was originally founded in 1867 through a law signed by Andrew Jackson. The focus of this original Department of Education was to collect information on the state of government and other schools and then report them to Congress as well as to the nation. Due to the fact that the agency had no actual regulatory powers and the agency was merely there for reporting services it was a sub-cabinet agency at the time. The biggest steps in education improvement began in 1958 after the Soviets launched Sputnik. In response, the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) was brought forth in an attempt to train students better so as to compete with the Soviets in the future(OVERVIEW). When President Lyndon Baines Johnson began his War on Poverty, he did part of this by funding education, and one of the laws he signed was known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act also known as (ESEA)(encyclopedia). This act has gone under name changes in today’s day and age. During the 1970s legislation was also passed to have the department make sure there was no discrimination based on age, sex, or disability in the school system. This is known as Title IX (OVERVIEW). In 1979 President Jimmy Carter elevated the status of the organization to the cabinet position that it holds today(DUKEDU). President Ronald Reagan initially wanted to get rid of the Department of Education and campaigned on the idea of removing it. He was not able to get the support but however, was able to drastically cut funding for it and crippled it. Reagan believed the practice of education should be left almost entirely up to the states. However, it appears he later faded from getting rid of the organization after it seemed that Americans were not getting prepared enough for the workforce based on reports(NPR).

The Department of Education took on Major changes in 2001 with the passing of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). This law signed under President George W. Bush outlined requirements that every state was supposed to meet. The act wanted schools to reach certain standards in education including a certain level of proficiency in both reading and mathematics. The act also increased standards for teachers and required them to be qualified under certain guidelines to teach certain classes. This included degree requirements(NCLBPDF). The act also called for the implementation of testing that we still have today. The traditional yearly testing for grades 3-8 was implemented at this time. The goal was to gauge the performance of students based on demographics, area, and school to see which areas needed to improve(NPR). Meeting these standards meant schools could continue to receive grants. This act was a vast increase in the federal handling of public education and raised concern because it forced accountability on teachers who in turn narrowed the curriculum to make students study for tests specifically. The next steps were made under President Barrack Obama. President Obama implemented a law called the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The act revoked some of the old rules about how school success was determined and gave much of the decision-making power back to the states. They still received funding, but the dissemination of funding was based on need as well as predetermined standards set by the schools and states themselves. It shifted accountability to states to make sure that schools performed well. Schools were also required to allocate a certain percentage of their money to extracurricular activities that would allow students to become more well-rounded. These areas included both music and studying the arts. The act was passed largely with a bipartisan effort(NCLBPDF). President Donald Trump has largely kept ESSA in place with the exception of some regulation changes (EDTRUMP).

The current Department of Education is currently, unlike the No Child Left Behind Period, a looser running organization. According to its own website the Department of Education has 2 main goals:

“First, the Secretary and the Department play a leadership role in the ongoing national dialogue over how to improve the results of our education system for all students. This involves such activities as raising national and community awareness of the education challenges confronting the Nation, disseminating the latest discoveries on what works in teaching and learning and helping communities work out solutions to difficult educational issues. Second, the Department pursues its twin goals of access and excellence through the administration of programs that cover every area of education and range from preschool education through postdoctoral research.” (OVERVIEW)

Much of its role at the current time is to support schools and act as a warden for civil rights. It does this by making sure schools are following all civil rights rules and regulations. However, there are definitely more intricate and specific duties that are provided. To delve into specifics about the current state of the Department of Education one must first look more closely at the budget. In this case, the budget that will be reviewed is the budget for the 2019 fiscal year. In the year 2018, according to the Department of Education website the total budget was $67.9 billion. However, the discretionary budget was much smaller at a total of $45.6 billion. There were $22.3 billion in Pell Grants allocated which are not-counted in the discretionary budget. However, the amount of $45.6 Billion includes funds from Annualized CRs. In the 2018 Annualized CR budget, approximately $23.5 billion went to ESSA programs. These ESSA programs include $15.4 billion for Title I Grants to educational institutions. These Title I grants are granted to those schools that possess a large number of students that come from low-income families. Because schools are largely subsidized by property taxes, schools in these areas typically get less revenue. The budget for ESSA breaks down extremely after this point with the next largest sums of contribution going to Title II grants and Impact Aid at roughly $2 billion and $1.3 billion respectively. Title II grants are those given to schools to help with raising teacher levels including training and evaluation. Impact Aid, like Title I is to subsidize income for schools. Some schools are in areas with many government buildings. These government buildings oftentimes are property tax exempt. Thus, school district space is taken up by buildings that do not pay property taxes. Impact Aid is granted to make up for these government buildings in some cases. ESSA is not limited to these payouts, however. ESSA pays for among other things: educational research (to benefit how teaching is done), state assessments, magnet schools, and school safety/national activities. The overall Department of Education Budget also includes the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). IDEA comprises approximately $13 billion which goes towards small IDEA programs as well as grants to States to support programs for students with disability. The budget also includes approximately $3.5 billion in administrative expenses including department management, Nationwide educational research, and assessments as well as making sure the laws such as Title IX are kept up to date. The Department of Education of course also disseminates Pell Grants and other functions whose purpose is to promote post-secondary education as well as make it more attainable (BUDGET).

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Despite the budget and the massive conversation surrounding education that we hear in the media; The United States education system is still rather disappointing on an international level. According to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) out of 71 of the world’s countries (most being developed), the United States placed 38th in mathematics and 24th in science. This study was from 2015 and is conducted every 3 years, measuring 15-year-olds. This put the United States in a significant group (in mathematics) that was well below average and included Hungary, Slovakia, Israel, Croatia, and Kazakhstan. In addition to this study, the Department of Education performs a test known as the National Assessment for Educational Progress or the NAEP. The NAEP tests American student progress. It appears that students are largely stalling out near the upper echelon. However, much fewer students are failing or getting below proficiency scores in the exams. The confidence in the American school system is also eroding from a public standpoint(PewTest).

In general, both parties are very divided on the role of the federal government in education. For the most part, the democratic party is more for centralized education. Therefore, they oppose ideas such as school vouchers. These programs allow students to use the money spent per student instead to go to private schools. The argument against this is that while the students are able to receive a better education than they might not have before, they are essentially giving up on public education. It takes money away from the whole and lowers the effectiveness of public schools (DNC). Republicans on the other hand are pro-voucher and also favor more decentralized education. Much of the logic behind this is that people in individual areas know what is best for their students to learn (reviews). A farming community might place more emphasis on farming and learning how to work with the hands, while a city may be better served by providing a broad number of ideas with less specialization due to the breadth of student demographics that attend these schools. A study found that people, in general, prefer local control but state and federal support. (education pdf)

Changes must be made to the public-school system, while ESSA is a very good program in theory and in many ways in practice, it is an easily abused system. Schools can set very simple or very easy benchmarks to hit and collect the money. There are also other things money should be going towards. The Department of Education should focus on awarding grants based on certain content. While it is easy to see that the United States is lagging in subjects such as math and science, money may not necessarily be the answer. Math and science are always available to students who need them. ESSA in 2018 spent a mere $1.12 billion on career and technical education. I believe that number should be much larger. In the United States, the average score on the National Financial Capability Test was a little over 63% (financial literacy). Gallup polls have found that around 50% of Americans are dissatisfied with the state of public schools(GALLUP). As a student who went through public school, I learned almost nothing from the school about how to budget or balance a checkbook. As well as very little about basic citizenship requirements such as filing a tax return. I also learned almost nothing about my rights in the workplace and did not find out until college. Workers knowing their rights are extremely important for their well-being so that they cannot be taken advantage of. It is especially important that students get career advice and training for possible future jobs. In a society where the cost of college is rising it may not be worth it to go to a 4-year college or technical university. The college has spiked in cost in the past few decades. While the cost of college has been slowing its increase, it is still going up, even when adjusted for inflation (college board). A pew research survey found that over half of Americans thought college did not provide a good value. While 75% of Americans thought it was too expensive for average Americans to afford (PewSurvey). Technical school is often cheaper and can find high-paying jobs. In addition, for many jobs being moved overseas there is a premium placed on Irreplaceable jobs such as plumbers, electricians, and airplane technicians can make very decent wages(payscale.com). Thus, ESSA should be modified to help students get on track. ESSA funding must be modified and increased in the section of Career advisement and technical skills. As the American people want, they should be able to choose which technical skills and which ways to teach them (education pdf). The funding should work in much of the same way it already does. Funding is given to schools that would struggle to create a program on their own. The application process would include explaining how the funding will be used and each year schools will be required to show their financial transactions with the money they receive. No school will be required to apply so as to not force them if those in the school district already view their system as enough. However, the Department would pursue an active role in advertising the increased funding, while urging parents to take an active interest to see if their children are being given the best possible education. The school districts will apply and if they can demonstrate a need for the money to create a new program, they will be given it to help start it. Those schools or districts can choose how best to invest the money they receive into programs they think are beneficial such as more career advisors in the school or a shop class.

This program would be primarily a factor in secondary schools. The secondary school allows for more choice in the path and is in a time when students must look at their careers. There are less than 27,000 high schools in the United States (EDHSFACTS). With just one extra billion dollars in funding, each high school could receive $37,037 to set up a program. The proposal I would want would be $5 billion or ($185,185 per program) in the first year and then $2 billion or ($74,074 per program). every other year after that to maintain the program. The first larger amount of the year would be for the cost of buying equipment or building a new classroom for any needs the school might need. This $5 billion increase would be a total of 0.0011% of the United States federal budget. And then in subsequent years, it would drop to 40 percent of that. This is money that can surely be found in the federal budget. In addition, local schools could use some of this funding to do fundraisers in to hope to get more money for their programs.

One issue that presents itself is the movement of the federal government on the issue. However, increasing funding through ESSA presents specific advantages. For one, no new laws need to be passed. The only need would be for funding to be increased in the budget for the career and technical education sections of the ESSA budget. This means that it would merely need to be negotiated in a budget signing rather than having to go through a very arduous law process on its own. It could be tacked on to budget proceedings. Now of course deficit hawks and proponents of lowering the spending will oppose the funding. After all, even recently it had been argued to cut the Department of Education in its entirety. However, education is a hot-button issue and can attract a lot of national attention. Not only would individual people need to get behind the effort by writing congressmen and senators, but interest groups would need to get involved as well. Teacher and Labor unions have a very large stake in the proceedings of funding such as this one. Teachers would get added support of additional funding and breadth in what they can teach, and think is necessary. Labor unions on the other hand will get more educated workers to join their ranks. A member of a labor union will be more likely to know his or her own rights in the workplace. A combined effort of interest groups, as well as students and parents who have a huge stake in the public education system, need to bring their thoughts to the table and push their congressional leaders to add funding to ESSA for practical education.

In conclusion, adding funding to ESSA will allow it to best serve the education of students in the United States. It will increase the ability of the Department of Education to push schools into new avenues. It will also allow students to see new opportunities and be better advised for their future. It gives school districts and parents the opportunity to show their kids avenues of success that may be outside of the traditional group. In Georgia, due to the emerging film industry, students could possibly see more options to learn about working on film sets, in Utah, they may learn about agriculture. All in all the increased funding of ESSA would benefit the United States financial literacy, career choice in the younger generation, and the effectiveness of student education.