The Strange Career of the U.S. Department of Education

To paraphrase a famous Mark Twain quip, the report of the federal Department of Education’s death is greatly exaggerated. But not for the reasons you think.

Although the Department of Education is the smallest of the 15 executive departments in Washington with 4,439 employees, and the third youngest behind the Department of Veteran Affairs created in 1989 and the Department of Homeland Security created in 2002, few federal entities receive so much attention for reorganization from presidents and members of Congress.

Ever since President Andrew Johnson signed a law to create the first education department on March 2, 1867, and Congress passed a law a year later to abolish the department in 1869 due to strong opposition to federal control of state and local education — and fear of Reconstruction-era democracy and racial politics — Republicans and Democrats in Washington have participated in a political tug-of-war regarding the appropriate federal role in K-12 education.

At the heart of the matter lies an important constitutional question: Where within our federal executive constellation does the status of education fit? Should we configure it as a single department of education? Or as an office, bureau, or division of education perched inside one or more existing federal departments or agencies?

Scholars affirm that the U.S. Constitution does not mention education as a domain of the federal government. The U.S. Supreme Court reinforced this principle in its 1973 San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez decision. Incontrast, governors, state legislators, mayors, and local school boards serve as the primary financial contributors to K-12 education. In 2021–2022, for instance, the share spent on education was 44% by the state, 42% by local government, and 14% by the federal government.

Historically the federal investment in K-12 education is less than 10%. This limited contribution calls into question how strong the federal education footprint should be, and what the depth of the imprint means to our democracy.

Nonetheless, our system of federalism guarantees Washington a role in American K-12 schools.

But does it guarantee us a federal department of education?

As a professor of practice at the University of Virginia, and author of a law review article about the federal role in American K-12 schools, I have examined presidential reorganization plans and congressional action regarding the creation, demise, and reincarnation of a federal education department from 1867 to modern times. I recommend Washington leaders assess the current debate about abolishing the education department by examining how their predecessors addressed the same dilemma.

Trump’s art of the deal for the federal education department

The election of Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States provides his incoming administration a second bite at the apple to implement bold reorganizational priorities for 437 federal agencies with 2.1 million federal civilian employees working domestically and abroad — subject to congressional approval, of course.

Abolishing the education department has been identified as a top priority for Trump in 2025. Doing so will return more money and authority to the states. Senator Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) gave Trump a head start through the introduction of the Returning Education to Our States Act on November 21, 2024. Republicans will control Congress for the next two years, meaning this issue is not going away anytime soon.

What are the stakeholders saying?

The responses reflect nuanced viewpoints.

On the right, former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos supports abolishing the department as do fellows at the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute. By contrast, fellows at the American Enterprise Institute recommend to keep it, fix it, or put it to work. And a leading national reformer offers recommendations for the road ahead.

On the left, President Becky Pringle of the 3-million member National Education Association (NEA) condemned the idea. A different perspective comes from the 1.8 million American Federation of Teachers (AFT). President Randi Weingarten said, “My members don’t really care about whether they have a bureaucracy at the Department of Education or not.”

Public confidence in the department outside the Washington Beltway is also mixed. According to a 2024 Pew survey of 9,424 U.S. adults about their views of 16 federal agencies, the education department (45%) and the IRS (50%) are the two most unfavorable agencies. Republicans view the department more unfavorably (64%) than Democrats (26%), although Democrats hold the department as the third most unliked behind the IRS and the Department of Justice.

Can a President, Congress, or both abolish an education department?

It depends on how you define abolish.

Presidents and members of Congress possess a lot more experience creating federal departments than abolishing them.

For example, Washington leaders created five departments — State, Treasury, Interior, Agriculture, and Justice — decades before the United States hosted its first World Fair in Philadelphia in 1876.

These departments remain an integral part of the 15 federal departments in Washington today.

Eight of the 15 current federal departments were created after WW II.

Of the pre-WW II federal departments, Congress split the once-single Department of Commerce and Labor into a separate Department of Labor and a Department of Commerce in 1913. The Department of Defense absorbed military departments abolished by Washington leaders during the 1940s. During the 1970s, Washington leaders approved the creation of a new health department and a new education department through the abolishment of the Health, Education, and Welfare department created in the 1950s.

At the end of the day, very few federal departments are abolished. More often they are consolidated into another department or spun-off into a new stand-alone department.

Comparatively, Washington leaders abolish a lot more federal agencies and subdivisions. The entity’s function, employees, and assets are transferred to an existing department, a new one, scattered across other agencies, or discontinued altogether.

For example, Congress abolished the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 2002. It removed its functions from the Department of Justice and placed them inside the newly-created Department of Homeland Security. In another instance, Congress abolished the Interstate Commerce Commission and discontinued its functions altogether in 1995. That agency was founded in 1887.

These reorganization efforts reflect a broader trend toward abolishing agencies rather than departments.

What can policy history teach us about the changing status of an education department?

With a national election victory comes the spoils of presidential and congressional prerogatives to reorganize the federal government.

In 1921, President Warren G. Harding proposed the creation of a Department of Public Welfare during his first address to Congress. This single cabinet-level agency would deliver support for public health and the working conditions of adults as well as provide K-12 education and child welfare services to teachers, families, and students in 48 states. At the time, the Department of the Interior housed the Bureau of Education, and the Department of Labor managed child welfare. Both departments competed for financial and human resources. Harding wanted to bring education and child welfare under one federal department. Congress said no.

A decade later, Depression-era leaders in Washington enacted The Economy Act of 1932. The law authorized the president to submit a reorganization plan to Congress to abolish, consolidate, or create an executive and independent agency. The law, however, forbade a president from abolishing an executive department and transferring its duties to another department.

According to the Congressional Research Service, every president from Herbert Hoover to Jimmy Carter submitted a reorganization plan to Congress to abolish, consolidate, or create a federal department or agency between 1932 to 1984, the year The Economy Act expired.

More than 100 reorganization plans focused on improving efficiency in government services and at least two presidential reorganization plans took effect for every president from Franklin Roosevelt to Jimmy Carter. Creating a new agency to house education appeared in a few reorganization plans, with a mixed response from Congress.

In 1932, President Herbert Hoover submitted a reorganization plan to Congress to create a single cabinet-level Department of Education, Health, and Recreational Activities. Two years earlier he shared his concerns with Congress and the public about the state of education and lack of protection for children’s health. What used to be a “bureau” was now an Office of Education within the Department of the Interior. Hoover wanted to bring education and child welfare under a federal department. Congress said no.

In 1939, however, Congress approved its first reorganization plan for education.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Reorganization Plan №1, which was part of the Reorganization Act of 1939, removed the Office of Education from the Department of the Interior, where it had lived since 1868, and placed it in the Federal Security Agency (FSA). Several existing programs scattered throughout various federal departments were transferred to FSA to better manage government operations.

But Roosevelt’s plan raised concerns about federal encroachment in state and local education. To this he replied, “This transfer does not increase or extend the activities of the Federal Government in respect to education, but does move the existing activities into a grouping where the work may be carried on more efficiently and expeditiously, and where coordination and the elimination of overlapping may be better accomplished.”

Congress approved its second reorganization plan for education in 1953.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Reorganization Plan №1 abolished the FSA and transferred its powers to a newDepartment of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). He said, “The plan at the same time assures that the Office of Education and the Public Health Service retain the professional and substantive responsibilities vested by law in those agencies or in their heads. The Surgeon General, the Commissioner of Education and the Commissioner of Social Security will all have direct access to the Secretary.”

Executive reorganization plans promoted by Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon — and approved by Congress — never sought to transfer education out of HEW. Therefore, HEW managed the federal government’s education initiatives from 1953 to 1979, the year Congress approved the Department of Education Organization Act supported by President Jimmy Carter.

Approval of this law birthed the first Department of Education and a Secretary to govern it. It remains the chief organization responsible for managing the federal government’s education initiatives.

Reimagining the stature of education through party power

Along with presidential and congressional prerogatives, political coalitions have played a crucial role in reimagining the stature of education in Washington. For instance, President Carter, the 96th Congress, and educational interest groups aligned to bring the education department into existence.

However, the groundwork for reimagining the stature of education began decades earlier with improvement of the status of government employees and public school teachers.

In 1962, for example, President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10988. It authorized federal government employees to engage in collective bargaining through labor unions for the first time. In the same year, American Federation of Teachers president Al Shanker supported a New York teachers strike that resulted in his members getting a contract. That outcome encouraged teachers in other cities to do the same. Those two collective bargaining victories elevated the status of public sector employees in the federal government and in schools.

During the 1970s, the 1.8 million member NEA, which at the time was the second largest union in America behind the Teamsters, did four things to support the creation of a federal education department: galvanized its approximately 4,000 members in each congressional district to support education locally; released the “Needed: A Cabinet Department of Education” report in 1975; sent 265 members to the 1976 Democratic National Convention — the most of any organization; and endorsed Carter for president at its national convention in Miami. NEA had never before endorsed a candidate in its 118-year history.

In 1980 a department of education reopened its doors for the first time since 1869.

Nevertheless, the pathway to a department was never seamless or easy. Intra-party conflict embroiled some Democrats.

Doubts about the need for an education department existed in the White House. Some close advisors opposed Carter’s idea. Yet, he remained tenacious with moving ahead. “Ultimately, the president was to devote more time to lobbying for the bill than to any other lobbying effort of his administration, except for the Panama Canal treaties,” wrote an author of an article about the creation of the education department.

Some federal lawmakers did not support the idea. Representative Benjamin S. Rosenthal’s (D-N.Y.) opposition to H.R. 13778 appeared in a November 1978 edition of the Congressional Digest. He believed proponents of the bill failed to explain how a separate education department would improve the delivery of teaching and learning in K-12 schools. A new department had no “major national policy to carry out,” Rosenthal claimed. House Representative John Conyers (D-MI) and Jenry A. Wacman (D-CA) were among Democrats that joined Rosenthal in opposing the creation of an education department.

Shirley Chisholm (D-N.Y.) opposed the legislation as well. She claimed the legislation lacked a strong enforcement plan to address civil rights and equal educational opportunity. “While others may choose to debate this issue in terms of the lofty and admirable ideals…I find it extremely difficult to disassociate formation of this department from its onerous political origins.”

Some democratic allies opposed the legislation over concerns about organizational fit. Marian Wright Edelman, President of the Children’s Defense Fund, believed that moving Head Start out of HEW and placing it in an education department was “a betrayal of poor and minority children throughout the country.” Why? “This is a program [Head Start] which is working in its present form with a large parental and community action component,” she is quoted to have said in The Washington Post on April 15, 1978. The article noted that Rev. Jesse Jackson and Coretta Scott King also shared their concerns about moving Head Start out of HEW with President Carter.

AFT was not in favor of a separate federal education department. Al Shanker said, “A separate department may encourage us to narrow our perspectives on what the school can do.” In other words, Shanker believed that keeping HEW intact provided health and welfare access to school children and mothers in ways an education department could not do, or at least do well.

AFT was not alone in its opposition to dismantling HEW. The Committee Against a Separate Department of Educationincluded AFT and a coalition of civil rights groups, unions, and higher education leaders.

After all the claims about benefits and disadvantages of an education department subsided, bipartisanship in the 96thCongress carried the day in fall of 1978. The Senate approved the bill with 69 votes for it (51Ds and 18Rs) to 22 votes against it (5Ds 17Rs). The House had 215 votes for it (185Ds and 30Rs — future Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich voted for the bill) to 201 against it (77Ds and 124Rs).

President Carter signed the bill on October 17, 1979. He said during the ceremony, “Placing education in a highly visible department of its own gives the American people a much clearer perspective on what the Federal Government is doing in education and who is responsible for these activities.” Why is this important? “It allows people to better decide what the Government should and should not be doing in education,” said Carter.

The doors to the new Department of Education opened on May 4, 1980.

Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama supported keeping the department open during their eight-years in the White House.

Affirmative reaction

Today’s affirmative reaction against having a federal education department aims to abolish it. Earlier efforts to block the creation of a department altogether lasted for 70 years.

According to the Legislative History of Public Law 96–88, members of Congress introduced more than 50 bills to establish a cabinet-level education department between 1908 and 1951. None of these bills gained much traction in the appropriate House and Senate committees. Between 1953 and 1980, when HEW was in operation, members of Congress still introduced more than 80 bills to create a new cabinet-level education department.

Why?

Some sponsors wanted to remove “E” from HEW to improve the stature of education within the federal government.

With the fulfillment of the Democrats’ campaign for an education department coming into fruition on May 4, 1980, Republicans began a campaign to abolish it.

Throughout the 1970s, most Republicans opposed the creation of a federal education department, citing concerns over federal overreach, the encroachment on state control, and the lack of a constitutional mandate for it.

One hundred and forty-one voted against the bill in 1978. In a November 1978 edition of the Congressional Digest, Representative John N. Erlenborn (R-IL) called the proposal, “a political payoff” to the NEA and “cargo preference legislation for the education community.” He expressed his concern about “the tentacles of the Federal Government” grabbing control of education from state and local officials. Several Republicans supported his claims that partisanship — not education for children — served as the driving force of the legislation. Future Vice President Dale Quayle (R-IN) was one of them.

Over the years, the national GOP’s presidential platform has called for the elimination (1980), abolishment (1996), or closure (2024) of the federal education department.

Two years after the education department opened, President Ronald Reagan articulated his desire to dismantle it in his 1982 State of the Union Address. Five years later he abandoned the idea for lack of support from Congress, including Republicans.

After President Reagan left the White House, the education department remained intact during the tenure of three Republican presidents — though not without calls to abolish it by members of their party.

President George H.W. Bush never called for the abolition of the department. He declared during a 1988 campaign event that, “I want to be the Education President.” In 1989 Bush became the first president to gather 49 governors for a national education summit held in Charlottesville, VA. He utilized the department in pragmatic ways. Unlike Reagan, Bush believed “the Federal Government will serve as a catalyst for change in several important ways.” In the end H.W. Bush saw a significant role for the department of education.

President George W. Bush did not advocate for the abolition of the department during his eight years in the White House. He utilized the department to implement his signature legislation No Child Left Behind and other K-20 priorities during his eight years in the White House.

Trump wants to abolish the education department.

This is not a revelation, right?

In The America We Deserve, a book published when Trump was a Reform Party candidate for president in 2000, he wrote, “If you look at public education as a business — and with nearly $300 billion spent each year on K-through-twelve education in the United States, it’s a very big business indeed — it would set off every antitrust alarm bell at the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission.”

Trump referenced the breakup of the Bell Telephone during the early 1980s, which had 90% of the market at that time, to make a case for school choice and moving money and authority back to the states. Therefore, Trump has long believed in the need to break up the education department.

A year before the 2016 general election, Trump replied to Fox News anchor Chris Wallace’s question about cutting government spending with this: “No, I’m not cutting services, but I’m cutting spending. But I may cut [the] Department of Education.”

During his first term, Trump’s top priority in the Delivering Government Solutions in the 21st Century report released in 2018 was merging the Department of Education and the Department of Labor. Republicans controlled the White House and Congress at the time. Voters flipped the House in favor of Democrats at the mid-term November election. This created the first Republican Senate/ Democrat House split since the 99th Congress of 1985–1987. As a result, merging education and labor into one department gained no real momentum in a house divided.

The road ahead

Only time will tell if the story of the next chapter in the strange career of the federal education department will be closure, consolidation, or some other approach.