The Trump-McMahon Department of Education (ED) has taken its first step toward returning control of education to the states, with Iowa being the first state to accept the challenge and apply for a waiver.
The Returning Education to the States Waiver can help states achieve more discretion and control over how they use federal funds for education, while removing excessive requirements for focusing on federal compliance. Iowa is hoping to save millions of dollars previously used on dealing with bureaucratic paperwork and red tape to apply that money to improving student achievement instead. Given America’s ever-dropping test scores, this is especially important.
“Granting Iowa’s waiver illustrates the Trump Administration’s commitment to returning education to the states by empowering state leaders, who know their students far better than bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., to have more discretion over federal education dollars,” said U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon in a Jan. 7 press release.
Over four years’ time, Iowa expects to redirect $8 million from federal compliance to the classrooms. Emphases in the new plan will include literacy training, closing student achievement gaps, and strengthening the pipeline of teachers for the state.
The federal government should never have been involved in education to begin with, and indeed since the Department of Education came into being, students’ test scores have steadily gone down as spending went up. U.S. spending of taxpayer dollars on education increased 154% since 1970. And yet there are no measurable academic gains for that time period. Indeed, only 61% of American eighth graders score at their level for math.
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The Trump administration aims eventually to shut down ED altogether, but in the meantime, it is working to transfer management of education back to the states and to incentivize improving student achievement rather than promoting woke programming.
McMahon said, “Under President Trump’s leadership, we will continue to identify avenues to reduce burdensome requirements and maximize flexibility for state leaders to invest in their students. Congratulations to the students and families of Iowa whose innovative Governor and Education Chief are fighting for the best interests and needs of their state.”
Iowa expects to improve its administrative efficiency by eliminating duplicative reporting and programming under the new ED waiver. The ED press release also stated:
ED has also approved Iowa’s application for Ed-Flex authority which allows them to grant districts waivers from certain federal requirements without first having to submit individual waiver requests to the Department.
One hopes that Iowa can achieve better results with literacy and math proficiency in the coming years. There are of course, many problems with our education system, including underqualified and woke teachers, too many administrators, low standards for student behavior, and highly inflated grading, but slashing bureaucratic red tape is a wonderful step in the right direction.
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