The Indispensable Role of the Department of Education in Ensuring Equitable Educational Opportunities

Federal agencies play a crucial role in the U.S. government, executing national functions and significantly impacting the public. The Department of Education (DOE) stands as a vital component of this federal bureaucracy, dedicated to shaping educational practices and policies across the nation.

Historical Context and Purpose

The Department of Education has a rich history, dating back to 1867 when President Andrew Johnson signed legislation to create the initial Department of Education during the Reconstruction period following the Civil War. In 1980, under President Jimmy Carter, Congress established the current Department of Education as a Cabinet-level agency. President Jimmy Carter emphasized the importance of education as a national investment, stating that "Every citizen has a vital, personal stake in this investment. Our ability to advance both economically and technologically, our country's entire intellectual and cultural life depend on the success of our great educational enterprise."

The DOE's establishment underscored the necessity of a coherent education agenda, particularly as the U.S. emerged as a global power. Its core purposes, as defined by Congress, include:

Strengthening the federal commitment to ensuring equal educational opportunities for every individual.
Supporting states, localities, and public and private institutions in their educational responsibilities.
Promoting improvements in education quality and usefulness through federally supported research, evaluation, and information sharing.
Improving the management and efficiency of federal education activities.
Increasing the accountability of federal education programs to the President, Congress, and the public.
Encouraging the involvement of the public, parents, and students in federal education programs.
Improving the coordination of federal education programs.

The mission of the Department of Education is to "promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access." This mission is pursued through leadership in national dialogues on educational improvement and the administration of a wide array of programs spanning pre-kindergarten through post-graduate levels.

Leadership and Structure

The Secretary of Education, appointed by the President and overseen by the Senate, leads the Department. This individual should possess exceptional qualifications and extensive experience in educational leadership to guide the national conversation on enhancing the education system and addressing the diverse needs of all students. The Education Department’s 17 offices play specific and vital roles in fostering educational excellence.

Read also: The CPB Logo: A Visual History

Five High-Impact Responsibilities of the Education Department

Through research and data on the effectiveness of programs and policies, ensuring equal access to education, addressing key educational issues, helping to establish policies and distributing funds, the Education Department’s offices and programs touch the lives of over 50 million students in K-12 and higher education. The Education Department's influence extends to over 50 million students in K-12 and higher education, making its responsibilities high-impact.

1. Funding Research and New Approaches to Improving Education

The Education Department, through the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), invests in research and innovative approaches to improve education. The IES mission is 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. This research generates high-quality data, statistics, and evaluations that inform education policies and practices, ensuring that decisions are based on evidence.

2. Ensuring Equal Access to Education and Civil Rights Protections

The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) within the Education Department is dedicated to ensuring equal access to education and promoting educational excellence by enforcing federal civil rights laws in schools that receive the department’s funding. The OCR has authority to investigate education civil rights discrimination and retaliation complaints based on:

Race, color, national origin, or ancestry (Title VI)
Sex or gender (Title IX)
Disability (Section 504 and Title II)
Age (Age Discrimination Act of 1975)

The OCR also gathers data through the Civil Rights Data Collection survey, which has collected data on equal access to educational opportunities for over five decades. This data helps to understand and inform compliance with civil rights laws enforced by OCR. By providing guidance to states and districts, the Education Department can shape the way that schools handle a variety of challenges to ensure equal access and protections for students.

3. Improving Education Outcomes for Students with Disabilities

The Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) offers programs authorized by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to improve results for infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities. About 7.5 million students receive services as mandated by IDEA.

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 - which replaced the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975) - took the necessary step of focusing on the individual rather than the condition to ensure that every student has access to a quality education. The six pillars provide a framework for meeting the needs of each individual student.

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. The IEP further specifies necessary accommodations and modifications to be provided to meet the needs of the individual child.
Free and Appropriate Public Education: Provides educational services that meet the standards of the state educational agency. These services are provided through public funds and are in conjunction with the IEP to meet the needs of the individual learner.
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. It allows for separate classes or learning spaces only if satisfactory education in mainstream classes cannot be achieved with supplemental services, such as paraprofessionals.
Appropriate Evaluation: Mandates that a variety of evaluation measures be used in identifying students who may be eligible for services and to document their learning to achieve their educational goals.
Parent/Teacher Participation: Provides for families and caregivers to work together with school personnel as part of the IEP team. The IEP team should engage in regular communication to provide updates and input about the child.
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. To help prevent school pushout, as part of the dispute guidelines students can stay in a school during the resolution process.

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. 504 Plans primarily provide accommodations for students to access the general curriculum, but do not provide for special education services.

4. Improving Education for All Students by Closing the Gap in Education Outcomes for Students from Families with Low Incomes and Those Experiencing Poverty

The Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) supports states, districts and other organizations to meet the diverse needs of every student from kindergarten through grade 12.

In recognizing the power of education to address poverty, President Lyndon Johnson sought to improve reading, writing and math for families from low-income communities with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) as part of the War on Poverty.

Title I under ESEA awarded more federal funding to states that increased the state funding to schools serving students from low-income households and those experiencing poverty.

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. Other rules for state and district allocations, however, can also impact the distribution to schools.

5. Funding and Supporting Higher Education Access and Opportunities

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. Student aid can come through student loans or grants depending on individual situation. The Education Department is the largest source of loans for college students (e.g. 28.6% of undergraduate students received federal loans in 2022-2023 academic year).

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. Award amounts can vary (on average about $4,800, with maximum just over $7,000), and are designed to help with the costs of higher education including tuition, books, housing and meals, and other education-related needs.

The Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE) works to strengthen the capacity of colleges and universities to promote reform, innovation, and improvement in postsecondary education.

Federal TRIO Grants and Programs identify and provide services for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds. There are eight programs that vary in scope and aim “to assist low-income, first generation college students, and individuals with disabilities progress through academic pipeline from middle school to postbaccalaureate programs.” TRIO grants are awarded to institutions of higher education and agencies that serve disadvantaged youth and schools.

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.

The Department of Education as a Data Hub

The Department of Education serves as America’s education data hub, collecting, analyzing, and publishing essential information about how our students are performing, what is working, and what isn’t. Collecting this information disaggregated by race, gender, national origin, and other important legally protected classes goes hand in hand with ED’s role in protecting students and enforcing civil rights and yields insights that are key to the thousands of policymakers and administrators working to improve our system. The data is also key to enforcing regulations against predatory and unscrupulous behavior by for-profit colleges and protecting students from low-quality programs.

The Importance of the Department of Education

The Department of Education is an essential part of the federal government. The Department of Education helps ensure all students have access to a quality education by providing critical resources to more than 50 million children attending public and private schools across the country. schools, administering federal financial aid to make college more affordable, and advancing research to enhance teaching and learning.

The Department of Education (DOE) accounts for about 3.5% of the entire federal budget and provides crucial funding for public K-12 schools, narrowing some of the huge gaps between needed resources and state and local revenue. Specifically, the DOE provides funding for low-income children through Title I funds and funding for special education through IDEA programs. These resources help balance the scales of school funding, as high-poverty districts often get less funding from local sources, which rely heavily on property taxes.

Concerns About Dismantling the Department

Terminating the Department of Education is a clear goal of Project 2025, which is rife with terrible ideas that would inflict harm on students and schools nationwide. However, this particularly bad idea has been a continual fixation of conservatives since the creation of the Department in 1979. While the amount of federal P-12 education funding provided is much less than that supplied by states and localities, federal programs include those within ESSA Title I, II, III, and IV, all of which are vital in supporting students from low-income backgrounds, developing and training educators, and providing resources for English learners, alongside other traditionally underserved students. Under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), ED is charged with providing and assisting with the implementation of $15 billion designed to provide individual supports for students with disabilities and resources to train and develop educators to ensure those students receive the free and appropriate public education they deserve. The creation and administration of educational plans for students with disabilities and learning differences is complex; without these resources, millions more students would go without the supports they need to succeed and thrive in school. Private schools are not required to admit or serve students with disabilities, but under IDEA, public schools are. All told, phasing out federal funds for all 13,000 school districts nationwide and letting states go their separate ways would be nothing short of disastrous, causing even deeper gaps in opportunity and achievement for our nation’s most vulnerable children.

Abolishing the Department of Education also means that the Department’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) would cease to exist. Schools and colleges need to be assisted in, and held responsible for, creating safe and welcoming learning environments for all students. OCR has an essential role in holding schools and colleges accountable for when they violate students’ civil rights to be free from sex-based and race-, national origin-, color-, and religious-based discrimination, as outlined in Title IX and Title VI, respectively.

Without the ability to borrow federal dollars to pay for college, millions of students will not be able to obtain higher education, and would be forced into private loans, which have higher interest rates and worse repayment terms for borrowers. Private loans don’t offer the income-based repayment and loan forgiveness plans like Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) and Public Student Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), which are administered by the Department.

Eliminating a central hub of expertise and fracturing the administration of related programs over several other agencies is designed to make them less effective for students and families and hinder cooperation and efficiency between civil servants, states, districts, schools, and colleges and universities. It also puts responsibilities on other agencies who don’t have expertise in those areas, have their own goals and priorities, and provides zero extra funding for hiring, training, or other important planning steps, let alone actual administrative action. As noted above, we already have an agency in place to operate these programs and there is little political support for terminating existing educational programs, especially those with public bipartisan support like TRIO and Pell.

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