The More Reforms Change

So here's the story.

The Secretary of Education sends the President a memo (91 pages!) arguing that the Department of Education should be dismantled as part of plan to get education sent back to the states. In its zeal to promote national security and reduce inequality, argues the secretary, the federal government has adopted "an overly intrusive federal role.”

The details of the proposal include moving department functions to other departments, such as sending Pell Grants  and loan programs to Treasury and the Office for Civil Rights to the Justice Department. Indian Education programs could go to Interior. The secreary explained that the move of the OCR would be with the aim of “making local and state resolution of complaints the first recourse.” Let Alabama and Georgia decide whether they are violating anyone's civil rights by promoting inequality in education.

The "large scale funding" of the department needs to be reversed because it is "one of the factors responsible for the present imbalance of the federal budget." Cutting around 27% of the federal budget should provide “encouragement to the states to shoulder a greater share of the responsibility for delivering educational services.” 

And what funding remains should be provided to the states in no-string block grants, piles of money that the states can spend as they wish.

The federal governmentj has no business managing educaation, particularly because under Certain Administrations, the department serves certain special interest groups. Also, dismantling the department would be in line with the President's campaign promises.

The Secretary of Education was Terrel Bell, the President was Ronald Reagan, and the year was 1981.

In other words, Trump-McMahon policies are 45 years old. They didn't start with Trump, and they won't end with him. The dismantling of the department--particularly the disempowerment of the OCR-- and the slashing of funding and funding oversight -- that's been the dream of some folks on the right since about fifteen minutes after the department was created. 

Note: I came across the story playing with a new EdWeek feature that lets you search for the big stories from the year you started in education. It does not actually go back to the year I entered the classroom, it got close enough to cough up this reminder that some parts of the anti-public education hustle are plenty old.