The US Secretary of Education: Responsibilities, Challenges, and the Future of Federal Education Policy

The United States Secretary of Education is the head of the United States Department of Education, an agency that establishes federal education policy. Understanding the responsibilities of the Education Department is an important step in addressing current threats to education rights and equal opportunities.

The Role of the Secretary of Education

The secretary serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States, and the federal government, on policies, programs, and activities related to all education in the United States. The secretary is responsible for the overall direction, supervision, and coordination of all activities of the Department and is the principal adviser to the President on Federal policies, programs and activities related to education in the United States. The Secretary serves as Chief Operating Officer for the Department under the President’s Memorandum of July 11, 2001.

The mission of the Department of Education is to ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence throughout the nation. The Department of Education has a long history within the federal government dating to the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, when President Andrew Johnson signed legislation in 1867 to create a Department of Education. For over 100 years, education as a national priority and the department shifted in various incarnations within other federal agencies.

The secretary's role is multifaceted, encompassing policy leadership, program administration, and advocacy for educational improvement. Education secretaries often act as thought leaders, shaping public dialogue and policies rather than directly implementing sweeping change.

Key Responsibilities of the Department of Education

The Department of Education administers a wide range of programs in education that span pre-kindergarten through post-graduate work. Five key responsibilities of the department stand out as examples that affect lives and promote educational excellence for a more competitive future.

1. Research and Data Collection

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) is the Education Department office with the mission to “provide rigorous evidence on which to ground education practice and policy.” IES shares research and evaluation information in formats that are useful and accessible to educators, parents, policymakers, researchers and the public.

2. Civil Rights Enforcement

The Office for Civil Rights also plays a role in collecting data through the Civil Rights Data Collection survey, which collected data on equal access to educational opportunities for over five decades. The federal government has at its disposal many tools with which to help protect the civil rights of our youth, including partnering with the Department of Justice. These tools include data collection and dissemination, policy guidance documents and budget requests, among others.

3. Support for Students with Disabilities

The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) provides a variety of programs authorized by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) that improve results for infants, toddlers, children and youth with disabilities. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), passed by Congress in 1990, is the important federal law that establishes the education rights of children with disabilities. IDEA took the necessary step of focusing on the individual rather than the condition to ensure that every student has access to a quality education.

IDEA includes:

Individual Education Plan (IEP) serves as a means of documenting an eligible student’s academic achievement and how the student’s disability can affect their learning in the general education curriculum.
Free and Appropriate Public Education provides educational services that meet the standards of the state educational agency.
Least Restrictive Environment requires that students with disabilities be educated with children who do not have disabilities in a general education setting to the maximum extent that is appropriate.
Parent/Teacher Participation provides for families and caregivers to work together with school personnel as part of the IEP team.
Procedural Safeguard allows for families, caregivers and school personnel to challenge any decisions they feel are not appropriate for the student. These safeguards include processes and procedures such as access to information and dispute resolution.

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 is a federal law that protects the rights of individuals with disabilities in activities and programs that receive federal funding. It prohibits exclusion of participation or denial of benefits of a program or activity based on a disability. While similar to an IEP, a 504 Plan does not need to be updated annually.

4. Funding for Disadvantaged Students

The Every Student Succeeds Act (2015) under President Barack Obama was the amended reauthorization of the ESEA. In 2021, federal Title I grants for economically disadvantaged students was $15.6 billion, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Census data, poverty rates, and local education agency data often represented by the number of students in the Free and Reduced Lunch program.

5. Federal Student Aid

Federal Student Aid (FSA) is the Education Department office that manages programs authorized under the Higher Education Act of 1965, including financial aid for students attending higher education programs. Federal student aid is available for individuals seeking a degree from institutions of higher education.

Federal Pell Grants are funds awarded to undergraduate students who display exceptional financial need. Since 1972, Pell Grants have supported millions of students to achieve a college education. In academic year 2023-2024, 6.53 million students received Pell Grant support. Federal TRIO Grants and Programs identify and provide services for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education (OCTAE) administers and coordinates programs that are related to adult education and literacy, career and technical education, and community colleges.

Historical Context and Political Debates

The Department of Education has been a source of political controversy since its creation in 1980 during Jimmy Carter's presidency. As a scholar of educational policy and the balance of federal and state roles in American education, I believe that understanding the department and its leader's responsibilities is especially important today. Each state has its own education system, with most designating a significant amount of control to local jurisdictions. Federal funding makes up about 14 percent of K-12 education funding. States and localities foot the rest of the bill, mostly through a combination of taxes on income and property.

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The Department of Education is not working as intended. Since its establishment in 1980, taxpayers have entrusted the department with over $1 trillion, yet student outcomes have consistently languished. Millions of young Americans are trapped in failing schools, subjected to radical anti-American ideology, or saddled with college debt for a degree that has not provided a meaningful return on their investment. Teachers are leaving the profession in droves after just a few years-and citing red tape as one of their primary reasons. The reality of our education system is stark, and the American people have elected President Trump to make significant changes in Washington.

The debate over the federal government's role in education predates the establishment of the Department of Education. The Department of Education has been a subject of political debate since its creation in 1980.

Some view the DoEd as essential for ensuring equal access to education and enforcing federal education laws, while others see it as an unnecessary bureaucracy that interferes with state and local control. The American education system is famously and uniquely decentralized with control over the day-to-day operation of schools in the hands of roughly 14,000 locally elected or appointed school boards. And those school boards are seen as our primary mechanism as citizens for exercising control over public education. And the federal involvement, which again is symbolized or emblem by the department, can be seen as inconsistent with that tradition.

The Secretary's Impact and Challenges

Education secretaries often act as thought leaders, shaping public dialogue and policies rather than directly implementing sweeping change. William Bennett, who served as secretary of education during the Reagan administration, became a prominent conservative voice. He advocated for "virtue-based education" rooted in traditional values. Margaret Spellings commanded more national attention as secretary of education than most people who have held the position during her tenure in the George W. Bush administration. Spellings championed standards-based education with an emphasis on accountability. Arne Duncan, who served as education secretary during the Obama administration, also made a lot of headlines. His Race to the Top program encouraged school districts and states to compete for federal funding as a way to drive improvement through competition.

Betsy DeVos, who served during Trump's first administration, was one of the most polarizing education secretaries in the department's brief history. The amount of student debt Americans owe has hovered around $1.75 trillion in recent years. Supreme Court struck down Biden's plan to forgive up to $20,000 per borrower. Ultimately, the courts will determine the legality of these relief efforts - underscoring the limits of the secretary of education's power.

The president’s executive actions in 2025 to undermine and tear down the department threaten a critical federal agency for safeguarding education and holding states accountable for ensuring equal opportunities for all students.

Potential Changes and the Future of the Department

President Trump plans to sign an executive order Thursday aimed at dismantling the Department of Education, a move with monumental ramifications for students and families across the country. Trump promised to end 'wokeness' in education. The education secretary's job would go away if Trump were to succeed with his campaign promise to "close up" the department.

The Department of Education’s role in this new era of accountability is to restore the rightful role of state oversight in education and to end the overreach from Washington. This restoration will profoundly impact staff, budgets, and agency operations here at the Department. In coming months, we will partner with Congress and other federal agencies to determine the best path forward to fulfill the expectations of the President and the American people. We will eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy so that our colleges, K-12 schools, students, and teachers can innovate and thrive. This review of our programs is long overdue.

If the Department of Education were to be eliminated, most proposals would simply shift the core activities of the department to other places in the federal bureaucracy. And if that were the case, I doubt schools and states and higher ed institutions would even notice the difference, much less struggle to continue to operate. However, some proposals suggest eliminating many of the laws that the department is currently charged with implementing, which would amount to a pretty dramatic change.

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