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The directive from President Donald Trump and Secretary Linda McMahon to dismantle the federal Department of Education and return power to the states is welcome news for many of us leading education policy at the state and local levels.
Like other efforts by this administration, a full-scale scrutiny of public programs is exactly what’s needed to reform the federal bureaucracy, reduce government and deliver results.
With a roughly $270 billion budget, the U.S. Department of Education is the sixth-highest funded federal agency. Despite the billions being poured into the department, educational progress of our students nationally has continued to decline or stagnate. Returning funding and control to the states, rather than propping up a bloated bureaucracy at taxpayer expense, will empower states to better serve our students.
Though the department has spent trillions of dollars since its establishment in the 1980s, only a fraction of education funding comes from the federal government. State and local funding sources make up more than 85% of education support in the U.S. Here in Indiana, where I’m speaker of the state House of Representatives, nearly half of our state budget goes directly to supporting our students.
The federal funds we do receive play a role, but too often, those dollars come with layers of red tape and federal mandates that waste time, money and resources. A far better solution would be to distribute funds as block grants to the states, eliminating wasteful government and freeing up more dollars for states to allocate as they see fit.
The February announcement reversing Biden-era regulatory burdens around Career & Technical Education (CTE) funding is just one example that underscores this point. The Education Department estimates that the new regulations, issued in December 2024, added thousands of hours in additional reporting compliance requirements on states, high schools and community colleges. This wastes dollars and time that should be spent educating our kids.
There’s a reason education has been left largely to the states. Local communities and school leaders are best positioned to innovate and respond to student needs.
In Indiana, we’ve spent the past two decades reforming our education system to prioritize students and focus on outcomes. We’ve adjusted our school funding formula so that dollars follow the student, and we’ve advanced one of the largest and most successful school choice programs in the nation to ensure that every student has access to a school that works for them.
When Indiana students were suffering from pandemic-related learning losses, we took quick action to reverse the trend.
To support students with special needs, we created an education scholarship account program giving families the option to seek a learning environment tailored to them. Rest assured, states can do a much better job of meeting the diverse needs of our kids than a room full of bureaucrats hundreds of miles away.
We’re proving it with the results. Indiana recently jumped to sixth in the nation for fourth and eighth grade reading, according to the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) rankings. We also rank in the top 10 for fourth grade math.
Indiana’s progress isn’t because of Washington, it’s because Indiana leaders trusted parents, teachers and local schools to make the right decisions for their students. States should be empowered to improve education locally instead of padding a dysfunctional and ineffective federal agency.
President Trump and Secretary McMahon are right to take on the federal education establishment because education belongs in the hands of state and local leaders, not Washington bureaucrats. It should be shaped by the parents, teachers and communities who know them best and can deliver the greatest impact.
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