Don’t Cry for the Education Department

Good riddance as Trump moves to dismantle it. But what then?

WSJ editorial. Excerpts:

"The Education Department was created as a payoff to the National Education Association teachers union, which supported Carter’s candidacy in 1976, in the NEA’s first-ever presidential endorsement. “The idea of an Education Department is really a bad one,” an anonymous liberal House Democrat told the Journal’s Al Hunt in 1979. “But it’s NEA’s top priority. There are school teachers in every congressional district and most of us simply don’t need the aggravation of taking them on.”

When Carter signed the bill, he argued that elevating education to a cabinet post, separate from the old combined Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, would “eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy, cut red tape, and promote better service for local school systems.” It would even “save tax dollars.”"

"falling U.S. test scores show a tremendous need to broaden the argument on education. Last year 33% of eighth-graders scored below “basic” on reading, according to the National Assessment for Educational Progress."