Ohio legislature joins push to abolish Department of Education
On February 11, Ohio lawmakers took another step in the national debate over who should control education policy—Washington, or the states and local communities closest to students.
The resolution urges Congress to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education and creates a task force to deliver, within 120 days, a plan for Ohio to assume control of federal education grants, special education, and civil rights enforcement.
The resolution has the backing of the Trump administration and the America First Policy Institute. American Habits interviewed Erika Donalds, chair of Education Opportunity at AFPI, last year.
“This resolution is about restoring common sense and accountability by putting education decisions back where they belong – closer to families, classrooms, and communities. Ohio is stepping up to lead, and it’s exactly the direction the country needs to go,” declared Donalds.
Andrew Brenner, a lawmaker in Ohio who chairs the Senate Education Committee added, “Today, we have delivered by being proactive as a state. Ohio is ready to lead the way in educational freedom and accountability to our families.”
Last April, I delivered a comprehensive lecture on the need to move beyond the U.S. Department of Education at Thales College in Raleigh, North Carolina. Below is a short excerpt from that address.
Forty-five years after its creation, the U.S. Department of Education has never justified its existence. Systems driven by mandates will forever prioritize itself and some form of idealized technical proficiency over the cultivation of virtues such as responsibility and obligations and knowledge of truth.
More traditionally, education has been a means of transmitting cultural values and preparing individuals for self-governance, a role best fulfilled at the local level where families, schools, and community institutions work together to shape curriculum and strive for a learning environment that is rooted in something beyond a society in disarray and jerked around by ideological fads.
If we are serious about restoring both educational effectiveness and moral character, we must return authority to the communities most invested in shaping the next generation. The path forward is certainly not more federal control or even state control but a reinvigoration of local institutions that respect tradition, cultivate responsibility, and foster intellectual curiosity. Only then can we hope to recover a broader education system worthy of a free people.
—Ray Nothstine
— The Federalism Beat