Lawmakers need history lesson on how federal intervention has helped schools

Whether Trump’s plan leads to the demise of the federal education agency or more of a restructuring remains to be seen. But the proposal has Republican support including U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., a vocal critic of what he calls an unnecessary bureaucracy. Rounds introduced a bill in late November that would distribute many of the duties elsewhere including the departments of Health and Human Services, Interior and Treasury.

“The federal Department of Education has never educated a single student, and it’s long past time to end this bureaucratic department that causes more harm than good,” said Rounds in a statement introducing his bill on Nov. 21. “Local school boards and state departments of education know best what their students need, not unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.”

I’m not sure if such confidence is merited in Georgia, especially considering the General Assembly’s current zeal for redirecting public tax dollars to private schools. The priorities of lawmakers are often swayed by what raises their political standing rather than student achievement.

Consider the Legislature’s standard response to school shootings is always hire more armed guards, despite a U.S. Department of Justice report finding no association between having an armed officer and deterrence of violence in school shootings. Somehow, lawmakers never mention retooling Georgia’s lax gun laws because that would irk the National Rifle Association.

People often forget federal activism grew out of historic inaction or indifference by states, especially in recognizing the needs and rights of low income and marginalized students. Among those programs was Title I, enacted nearly 60 years ago under then-President Lyndon Johnson to provide federal aid to schools with high concentrations of students from low-income families.

Johnson was worried about whether low-income kids finished high school, warning Congress at the time, “One student out of every three now in fifth grade will drop out before finishing high school. Unemployment of young people with an eighth grade education or less is four times the national average.” To earn Title I funding, districts had to comply with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, so the program spurred desegregation of Southern schools.

Federal influence broadened with the 1975 Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, which provided funding for special education services and imposed regulations to ensure the needs of students with disabilities were met. Before IDEA, public schools didn’t serve many children with serious disabilities. A 1972 Congressional review found 1.75 million children with disabilities received no education, while 2.5 million received a substandard one. Today, an estimated 7.5 million students receive services under the IDEA Act.

In 2001, then-President George W. Bush used the threat of withholding federal aid as a prod in his No Child Left Behind Act, imposing stringent new accountability requirements for the performance of all students. The reliance on test scores to reward and punish schools made No Child almost universally despised. Since then, the agency has maintained an active role in promoting school improvement, including the Obama administration’s Race to the Top grants under which Georgia received $400 million.

Has all that federal activism helped? Certainly, the U.S. Department of Education data sets are valuable in charting the progress of American students at a granular level. The agency oversees the complex student loan system, which is essential to higher education in America.

If the department’s vital responsibilities are sliced up, will the receiving federal agencies treat them as a priority? Anyone who has lived through a merger in corporate America can testify the absorbing company often proves a bad fit or treats its new divisions as afterthoughts.

There may not be anyone in Treasury or Health and Human Services who views education with the importance that Johnson did when he signed Title I into law, reminding his audience, “We have always believed that our people can stand on no higher ground than the school ground or can enter any more hopeful room than the classroom.”