Arne Duncan on Gutting the Department of Education: A 'Disaster' for Students

Dismantling the Department of Education

• ⚠️ Arne Duncan argues that while the Trump administration cannot fully shut down the Department of Education without Congressional approval, they can still dismantle and disable it, causing significant harm.
• 🎯 The argument that the federal government has too many bureaucrats and that education should be returned to the states is characterized as disingenuous and dishonest.

Federal Role in Education

• 🎯 The former Secretary highlights that 90% of K-12 education funding already comes from state and local levels, with only 10% from the federal government.
• 💡 The federal government's crucial role is supporting vulnerable children, including those with special needs, rural students, and those benefiting from Pell Grants for higher education.
• 📉 Any impact on these resources would be a disaster for the educational trajectory and opportunities of these children.

Impact on Student Aid and Reading Crisis

• 📚 A significant concern is the potential dismantling of federal student aid programs, which administer billions of dollars for higher education.
• 🚫 Moving responsibilities to other departments like Labor, HHS, or Treasury would not address the reading crisis in the U.S., where NAEP scores are too low.
• 🎯 There is nothing President Trump has proposed that directly helps a single child learn to read, which is disheartening.

International Education Comparisons

• 📈 While acknowledging that the U.S. should not be satisfied with its educational performance, Duncan counters the comparison to more homogeneous countries.
• 🌍 He points out that the outperforming countries often have centralized education systems that they view as a national interest.
• 🇺🇸 He argues that education should be a bipartisan issue, not a partisan one, and that the federal government walking away is a mistake.

Blame for Low Scores

• 📊 When national scores are low, the question arises whether to blame the 10% federal investor or the 90% state and local investors.
• 🎯 The focus should be on improving education for all children, rather than dismantling existing structures.