“Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.”
—President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1938
Education is foundational to democracy. But for decades, Americans have debated how the United States should structure, govern, and fund its schools.
Critics of federal involvement say the top-down rules stifle innovation and ignore the unique educational needs of each community. Proponents contend that federal oversight is essential to ensure equal educational opportunities for all students and for collecting consistent data nationwide.
Last month, President Trump issued an executive order to “facilitate the closure of the Department of Education (DOE) and return authority over education to the states and local communities,” making the case that the action would “provide children and their families the opportunity to escape a system that is failing them.” It’s an order with far-reaching implications.
To find out what this could mean for schools across the nation, we talked with Beth Schueler, associate professor of education and public policy at UVA’s School of Education and Human Development.
Q: Will changes to the DOE be more acutely felt in K–12 education or higher education?
Schueler: Changes will be felt in both K–12 and higher education in important ways. Some of the K–12 impacts, like on funding, might take longer to unfold, whereas we’re seeing more dramatic action in higher education right away. Anything that impacts research will affect both higher ed and K–12—because universities are where much of the research on K–12 happens. But it’s difficult to predict.
Q: Could giving more control to states and local communities improve U.S. education?
Greater control at the local level could allow for more flexibility and tailoring of policies and programs, as well as opportunities for experimentation and innovation. But a successful decentralized approach would require greater investments in state and district capacity to ensure the effective use of funds, research infrastructure to learn from such experimentation, systems of accountability and transparent oversight, and funding to address resource disparities across states and communities.
Greater control at the local level could allow for more flexibility and tailoring of policies and programs.... But a successful decentralized approach would require greater investments in state and district capacity.
Q: With these changes planned, can you give us background on what the DOE does currently?
Schueler: States and districts already take the lead on education. The federal government plays a relatively minor but important role. The DOE's primary functions are: (1) enforcing civil rights laws, (2) providing students with financial aid for postsecondary education, (3) funding elementary and secondary education, (4) offering policy guidance for state and local leaders, and (5) conducting and funding research on education.
States and districts already take the lead on education. The federal government plays a relatively minor but important role.
The DOE cannot be abolished outright without an act of Congress. But the executive branch can dramatically weaken its capacity. Already, the administration has cut the size of the department in half, laying off more than 1,000 employees. These actions may make it more difficult to support students financially, to investigate civil rights complaints, and to encourage the effective use of federal funding.
Q: What other functions does the federal government fulfill in K–12 schools?
Schueler: States and districts provide roughly 90 percent of funding for K–12. But funding from the federal government is important because much of it is “compensatory” in nature, specifically focused on schools serving students from low-income homes or who have disabilities. In the past, many of those funds have been distributed based on formulas established as part of President Johnson’s War on Poverty. This means communities serving economically disadvantaged children could be hardest hit by changes.
There is speculation that the federal government will move away from this formula-driven approach toward “block grants,” giving states much more flexibility in how they spend federal funds. This could result in greater variability and inequality in fund distribution, but it remains to be seen how schools will be impacted.
Q: What is the effect of layoffs on education research?
Schueler: The research and development arm of the DOE, the Institute for Education Sciences (IES), was disproportionately impacted by the recent layoffs of federal workers. While other units inside the agency lost more employees, IES lost the highest percentage—roughly 90%.
This is critical because federally supported research helps us understand which programs are most effective at helping children and teachers succeed at the lowest cost. Given that children still have not recovered from unprecedented declines in basic reading and math skills after the pandemic, research to inform ongoing recovery efforts is more important than ever.
Federally supported research helps us understand which programs are most effective at helping children and teachers succeed at the lowest cost.
Q: So, in the current moment, how do we measure success?
Schueler: By looking at the federally implemented National Assessment of Educational Progress, sometimes called “the nation’s report card,” which allows us to evaluate K–12 student academic performance nationwide, across states, and between subgroups. To what extent are, for example, low-income students performing below high-income students?
It makes sense that the federal government plays a role in gathering data that allows for state-by-state comparisons. Individual states don’t necessarily have an incentive to do that on their own, but it’s crucial for democracy—for transparency, public accountability, and informed public policy.
We need to maintain a consistent yardstick that can be used to understand, for instance, how students in Tennessee are doing compared to students in Montana. And we need to be able to learn from high-performing states about how better to serve students in areas that are lower performing.
If President Trump’s executive order improves educational performance, we would want to know that, right? Data help us understand which programs are operating efficiently, which are not cost effective, and which are hurting student outcomes. Data collection or other departmental functions could be moved to other parts of the federal government, but we have not yet seen concrete moves in that direction.