Why Many Teachers and Parents Say the U.S. Doesn’t Need a Federal Department of Education
Last Tuesday night, I dragged a folding chair across the sticky linoleum of Lincoln Elementary’s cafeteria, still brushing Goldfish crumbs off my jeans from my second grader’s after-school snack. I’m both a third-grade teacher here and a district parent, so I bring two notebooks to PTA meetings: one for staff concerns, one for issues that affect my own kid. That night, the room went quiet fast when our superintendent passed around a 17-page memo from the U.S. Department of Education.
To keep our $1.2 million annual Title I funding—money that pays two reading intervention specialists and free after-school tutoring—we had to ditch the phonics curriculum we’ve used for 11 years and pick one of three pre-vetted programs on a federal “evidence-based” list. Our Orton-Gillingham aligned program, which works especially well for dyslexic learners, wasn’t on it.
Mia, whose 8-year-old son Jasper is in my class, spoke first, voice tight. She held up a first-grade reading test from when the district used a whole-language program tied to an older federal grant: he recognized just 18 sight words, well below grade level. Back then, he hid under his desk most reading periods, and the nurse floated a behavior referral. This year, after 10 months with our current program, he scored a 92 on his end-of-unit test and works through Magic Tree House books independently. “None of the people who wrote that list have ever met Jasper,” she said. “They don’t know he uses dinosaur magnet letters to practice spelling. How do they get to decide what works for him?”
I thought about that the next morning, when Jasper walked in, dumped his chipped T-Rex magnet set on my table, and spelled “raptor” before the bell. Last year, he’d spend the first 10 minutes of reading group twisting in his seat, asking for the bathroom three times in 15 minutes. Now he raises his hand to sound out new words for the class. The federal rubric that rejected our curriculum measures success via average test gains across large national samples. It doesn’t account for the 38% of our students on free or reduced lunch, the 12% who are English learners, or the 21% with IEPs. It doesn’t care that the wealthy suburban district next door thrives with one of the approved programs, while our small rural peer districts see the best results with the exact curriculum Washington wants us to drop.
After the meeting, Mia and I leaned against her car in the wind-whipped parking lot. She said she’d left a public comment on the Department of Education’s website six months earlier, explaining Jasper’s progress, and never got a reply. When she spoke at our local school board meeting last month, though, three board members showed up to my reading group the next week to watch him work. That contrast is why I’ve joined a growing group of parents and teachers who argue the U.S. doesn’t need a central federal Department of Education setting K-12 rules for every community.
Most people assume federal money covers most public school costs, but it makes up just 8 to 10% of the average district’s budget; the rest comes from state governments and local property taxes. That small pot of cash, though, comes with endless strings: mandatory standardized tests, curriculum mandates, reporting requirements, compliance audits. Last year I tracked time spent on federal-mandated paperwork and test prep: 27 instructional days total. That’s 27 days I didn’t lead small reading groups, run hands-on math projects, or check in with kids struggling at home. Our district employs three full-time admins whose only job is federal reporting and audit prep; their combined salaries add up to more than we pay both reading intervention specialists.
A newer parent named Lila asked the obvious follow-up: without a federal department, what stops districts from denying support to disabled kids or rolling back civil rights protections? It’s a fair concern, but those rules are written into federal law, and could be enforced by the Department of Justice and state education agencies just as easily, without a separate bloated federal agency. Right now, the department layers so much extra paperwork tied to those laws that most IEP meetings spend half their time checking federal classification codes instead of talking about kid-specific needs. Jasper’s annual IEP meeting last month ran three hours; 90 minutes went to confirming his disability label matched federal criteria, and only 60 to actual goals, like using dinosaur-themed passages and getting extra quiz time.
A small group of us stayed late to hash out actionable steps no federal policy change required, steps any parent or teacher can use. First, when pushing back against one-size-fits-all rules, show up to local school board meetings with specific, kid-level evidence, not generic talking points. Bring test scores, writing samples, concrete stories of what works. Board members are local elected officials, many with kids in district schools, and they don’t answer to Washington. Second, teachers can cut compliance busywork by teaming up with grade-level peers to merge overlapping federal report fields into one shared tracking sheet; my team did that last year and saves 45 minutes a week each. Third, look up your district’s federal funding share—most people are shocked how small it is. A district 45 minutes north of ours turned down a restricted federal grant last year, then put a $29 annual property tax increase on the local ballot to cover the gap. It passed with 62% support, and they kept full control of their curriculum and intervention staff.
As of this week, we’re still waiting on a federal waiver to keep our phonics program. The stack of compliance forms on my desk grows a little taller every Friday, and Jasper still brings his T-Rex magnet to reading group each morning. Next month, the school board will vote on whether to put the small tax levy on the November ballot if the waiver is denied. No one is sure it will pass. Last night I saw Jasper and Mia at the grocery store, and he was reading cereal aisle signs out loud, slow and steady, sounding out each syllable under his breath. It’s the kind of small, quiet win no federal rubric can measure, and no office 400 miles away can ever understand better than the people who see these kids every day.
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