Issue Position: Education

Issue Position

The US Department of Education should be abolished immediately and the power to regulate education returned to the state and local governments and to the families of our children.

The Constitution provides no authority whatsoever for the federal government to be involved in education. Eliminating the department on those grounds would help to reestablish the original understanding of the enumerated powers of the federal government.

The CATO Institute, in a 2003 report to Congress, pointed out that: "Former secretaries of education Lamar Alexander and William Bennett have stated that the department has ""an irresistible and uncontrollable impulse to stick its nose into areas where it has no proper business." 1

The CATO Institute also cites "waste and abuse" reporting that the Education Department "lost track" of $450-million that was awarded as grants during three GAO audit periods.

All federally supported "education" programs such as Common Core, No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and others should be repealed.

The 5,000-employee bureaucracy should be dismantled and its $67-million annual budget applied toward eliminating deficit spending.

Source