Ive listened to the U.S. Department of Education being referred to as a Cabinet-level con job and a needless and wasteful use of our tax dollars that needs to be eliminated.
As a retired public school teacher of this community and a lifelong South Dakota resident who went to K-12 public schools and received multiple degrees from this states public universities, I must disagree with this effort. This is a department that is tasked with educating and protecting the rights of every single public K-12 student in this nation, no matter their circumstances. Farming out its duties to other now-depleted departments is just not a formula for success for our states or nations public school students.
Theres been a lot of talk from about what the Department of Education doesnt do from the administration, but lets be clear about what it does. The Department funds all K-12 Special Education programs (through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) and Title I supplemental teaching (through the Every Student Succeeds Act). It promotes innovation and improvement in teaching and learning through its own research and the evaluation of others research. The Department funds programming to help teach English to our English Language Learners and provides funding for safety and student health programs. It provides funds for postsecondary education programs, assists in vocational and adult education programs, and provides financial aid to students to cover the costs of these programs.
What has been referred to as troublesome red tape in how federal funds are allocated to states could just as easily be considered accountability to avoid the waste and fraudulent use of tax money that this administration is so concerned with.
As a longtime Title I teacher in the Brookings School District whose entire salary each year was paid for with federal funds, I had to be accountable on paper for everything I did before, during, and after each school year. My Title I colleagues and I had to justify that we were teaching the students we were supposed to teach, that we were using the kinds of scientifically-based methods and materials we were supposed to use, and that we provided the adequate amount of instructional time, parent communication, and opportunities for practice that our students, their classroom teachers, and their parents could use to help them grow. And this pales in comparison to the accountability factors that my colleagues in Special Education have to deal with to justify their use of federal funds. But we are also talking about students who require more specialized staffing and services than a standard student.
Lets face facts: South Dakota gets substantially more federal tax money than we pay in as a state. Our public schools receive more than 20% of their total funding annually from Federal funding from the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture (school lunch and breakfast programming), the Department of Defense (K-12 schools on military installations), and the Department of the Interior (K-12 Bureau of Indian Education schools). This amount easily ranks us in the top 10, and more often than not in the top five, states for the amount of federal education funding in the United States. To think that messing with 20% of anyones or any entitys income is not going to be a major hurdle to planning and providing services is absurd.
At the very least, turning over the control of Title I and special education funding to Health and Human Services and the Federal Student Loan program to the Small Business Administration is problematic for our students, teachers, and schools. Each of these departments has also been tasked with massive staffing cuts, so who will and how will these departments take on a sudden windfall of duties from the Department of Education?
To senators Thune and Rounds and Congressman Johnson, you got the important government positions that you wanted: now its time to do the work for which you were elected representing all South Dakotans. Its OK to be conservative with your beliefs but not to be punitive with your actions or inactions or to allow someone who was not on the ballot to be making these vital decisions about future generations in our state and country. It is time that we all stand and defend the U.S. Department of Education, whicf protects free, appropriate public education our public school system provides.
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