America's Education
President Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education. His reasoning has ranged from claiming America ranks dead last in education, that the Department of Education is indoctrinating children with liberal propaganda, that control of education should be returned to the states, and that America spends the most on education in the world.
The problem with all of those reasons is that they are false. America doesn’t rank dead last in education. We rank close to the top in some subjects. The Department of Education doesn’t determine the school curriculum because control is already in the hands of the states, and America isn’t the nation with the highest spending on education.
Let’s explore.
International testing for education performance allows us to compare America's performance to other nations. One such test is the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), administered by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a group of 38 highly developed nations that work together to “build better policies for better lives” through data and policy examinations.
The test is administered every three years, the most recent being in 2022. The United States scored 5th in reading and 12th in science among OECD nations. However, America has consistently scored lower in mathematics, and this year was no exception, ranking 28th. The United States also ranked 8th in educational attainment, with 92% of adults having at least a high school diploma compared to the OECD average of 79%.
Clearly, America is not the worst nation for education, or even close to it, although there are areas for improvement. What about spending?
The United States does spend a lot on education, just like we spend heavily on most areas of society, including healthcare, housing, food, and so much more. Being the world's wealthiest country brings a higher cost of living. Despite this, America is not the country with the highest spending on education. For primary schooling, Austria, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Luxembourg all outspend America, with Sweden and Korea not far behind. For secondary education, twelve nations spend more than the US.
90% of K-12 funding in America comes from state and local levels. So, any claim that the federal government is spending too much on education is ridiculous. For K-12 funding, the Department of Education provides resources for low-income families, which accounted for $18 billion in 2023, special education programs for children with disabilities, which cost $15 billion, and school improvement programs, which cost $6 billion. For comparison, the US military cost $820 billion in 2023, and its budget has increased by $75 billion since then.
If the Department of Education isn’t mainly focused on funding education, is it focused on curriculum instead?
No. The Department of Education does not direct, mandate, or work on school curriculum. The claim that it does is even more outrageous than claiming it spends too much on education. That’s because the Department of Education and the entire federal government are prohibited by law from doing so.
20 USC 1232a: Prohibition against Federal control of education
No provision of any applicable program shall be construed to authorize any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school, or school system, or over the selection of library resources, textbooks, or other printed or published instructional materials by any educational institution or school system, or to require the assignment or transportation of students or teachers in order to overcome racial imbalance.
On top of the investments in K-12 education listed above, the Department of Education administers the federal college loan programs, ensures the needs of students with disabilities are met, and one often overlooked but critical aspect of education, research on how to improve it. Before delving too deeply into what that research entails, let’s consider the changes it made in Louisiana and Alabama.
The Covid pandemic set students back in reading and math skills. They still haven’t returned to prepandemic levels. Louisiana is one of the rare exceptions. In 2019, Louisiana’s fourth graders ranked 50th in the nation in reading. Today, they rank 16th. How did they make such a drastic turnaround in a short time? They trusted the research.
Louisiana enacted requirements that teachers be taught the science of reading and updated its teaching materials to align with modern research on how best to help students learn to read. The state also established a structure of weekly sessions for teachers to discuss and review progress, master teachers to be a resource for schools, and accountability checks on how the teachers and schools are doing so they can target improvements. To make this happen, the state used COVID relief funds.
While the rest of the nation saw its math scores decrease, Alabama saw an entire grade increase. Alabama used its COVID funding to purchase new math teaching tools, such as counting cubes, which allowed the students to hold math in their hands instead of looking only at concepts on paper. Like Louisiana, Alabama changed its approach to teaching math to align with the best research. This included methods such as finding multiple ways to solve problems and discussing math like a language to increase fluency.
Following the research combined with targeted investments works. Which is precisely what the Department of Education was created to do. You can view the research on the department’s website, such as the recent report on improving foundational reading skills for K-3. This research is available to everyone, and as Louisiana and Alabama have shown, research can create significant positive change for students.
We shouldn’t be attempting to dismantle or defund the Department of Education. We should be supporting it. It is a shared resource that benefits all schools without dictating any curriculum. The more our education system improves, the more prosperous our nation becomes.
Trust the research instead of fearing the culture war.
https://www.oecd.org/en/about/programmes/pisa/pisa-data.html
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-does-the-federal-government-support-education/
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/13/nx-s1-5304415/louisiana-reading
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/17/nx-s1-5328723/alabama-math-learning-teaching-test-scores
School Choice is a Failure
Giving parents the freedom to choose which school best suits their child’s educational needs and providing those families with funds for their choice. That is the standard line given by proponents of school choice.
The problem with your column is education (and faith). It outlines the facts but too many people aren't interested. Trump says DOE fails and that's what people believe, though demonstrably false. DOGE is not finding fraud or saving money, but the administration says it is, so, on faith alone, it is. These people can't be reached. I can, but I'm obviously willing to read this. The people one needs to reach are unreachable, except via large social media acts and apps. How to get people to pay attention even to factual social media, even for one's own benefit, is not something that we've yet figured out how to accomplish.