According to the 10th Amendment, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The U.S. Constitution makes no mention of education, leaving establishment and oversight of public education to the states.
And state constitutions do spend considerable time and money (often half of the state’s budget) funding public education. Usually, states fund over 90% of public school expenses. Federal spending on public schools in 2020-21, approximately $80 billion, rose to 10.6% of school funding due to COVID-relief funds.
In the famous 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court was unanimous in recognizing that “education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments.” Yet the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to consider education as a fundamental human right. In San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodrigues (1973), they considered “Whether education is a fundamental right, in the sense that it is among the rights and liberties protected by the Constitution . . .” and concluded it was not a fundamental right. Two additional cases, Gary B. et al. v. Whitmer et al. in Michigan (2018) and Hernandez v. New Mexico (2020) likewise failed to find education to be a “fundamental” national right.
Some states have statutes or provisions in their constitutions that establish a right to an education, but it is not governed by federal law. Many foreign countries do have education written into their constitution or equivalent, and are surprised that the U.S. does not.
The equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment does require when a state establishes a public school system, no child living in that state may be denied equal access to schooling. And in June of 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court issued the landmark decision Plyler v. Doe holding that states cannot constitutionally deny students a free public education due to immigration status.
One agency in the U.S.D.E. is the Institute of Educational Sciences, which oversees centers on education statistics, research, and evaluation. The National Assessment of Educational Progress or the “Nation’s Report Card” has measured student academic performance since 1969. With 50 varied state systems, the NAEP serves to detect variations in educational equality among states, rural versus urban, etc.
But it was not until Oct. 17, 1979 that President Carter signed the law creating the U.S. Department of Education. Those wishing to close down the U.S.D.E. propose converting most federal funding into “nostrings- attached” block grants to states. This is nothing less than rich men’s greed, seeking to substantially cut state taxes by replacing it with federal money. These last decades have seen many states fined for using millions of dollars in federal education funding to cut state educational funding, a violation of the federal “supplement, not supplant” requirement for these specifically-targeted funds. Much of the effort of advocates for eliminating the U.S.D.E. is clearly to line the pockets of the rich.
Before the U.S.D.E. was formed, the former Department of Health, Education and Welfare took care of the more limited duties. Still today, the Department of Health and Human Services manages the Head Start program. And the National School Lunch Program is managed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Unless there is a Constitutional Amendment passed to add education to the U.S. Constitution, there is little reason not to close down the U.S.D.E. and move the limited federal duties back to other federal agencies. But it will be critical to continue to make sure states do not divert the federal funds.
John Schrock is a former teacher and newspaper columnist, and appears on Kansas public radio.
