WASHINGTON—Since 1950, the number of students in U.S. public schools has doubled, the number of teachers has more than tripled, and non-instructional staff has spiked by more than 700 percent.
And yet, the Heritage Foundation director for the Center for Education Policy told federal lawmakers that only 65 cents of every $1 in federal education spending reaches classrooms at a time when math and reading scores across the country continue to plummet.
“We don’t have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem,” Lindsey Burke said on Wednesday during the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies hearing on K–12 education finance. “It’s time to charter a new course.”
Committee members and their witnesses debated moving Department of Education funding streams for low-income populations and special education programs to other federal agencies that would provide block grants to states.
Proponents say this would reduce billions of dollars in bureaucratic waste and redirect money to boost higher student achievement and school choice at the local level.
Opponents say it would disproportionately impact low-income and minority communities, shift more tax dollars to students already attending private schools, and eliminate nationwide emergency funding and guidance capabilities such as those the Department of Education provided during the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It would be really devastating to this country,” said Robert Kim, executive director of the Education Law Center, who also worked for the Office for Civil Rights during the Obama administration.
Committee Chairman Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) said the Department of Education gave public schools $190 billion in post-COVID emergency money for learning recovery efforts but that the recent National Assessment of Educational Progress report shows the money didn’t help: One-third of eighth graders read below basic levels.
“American students are struggling. There’s no way to sugarcoat that,” he said. “If this trend continues, the entire nation will suffer socially and economically.”
Rep. Andrew Harris (R-Md.) said: “Our public education system is a dismal failure on the world stage. More money is not gonna fix it.”
Burke said that for K–12 program spending, the Department of Education budget could be reduced by up to 90 percent just by eliminating competitive grants awarded to states for some curriculum and staffing initiatives without harming appropriations for special education and Title I funds for low-income populations.
Kim disagreed, saying that the block grant process allows states to take over federal education funding with no strings attached. States can shift special education allotments to other programs in any given year and subsequently reduce future federal grant amounts that are supposed to help children with special needs.
He also said shifting federal money away from special education programs to fund private school vouchers will lead to a “mass exodus” from public schools to private schools that aren’t required to follow the same accountability standards.
Virginia Gentles, director of the Defense of Freedom Institute, responded that the current system for covering special education is riddled with lawsuits from parents trying to obtain more services for their disabled children in public schools, and so change is warranted.
Local property taxes, municipal sales taxes, state lottery revenue, and other forms of state aid provide public schools with far more revenue than federal aid. All property owners, taxpayers, and consumers pay into the local system whether or not they have children. School choice opponents are more worried about the loss of smaller funding streams based on state and federal per-student formulas.
President Donald Trump has said he will work with Congress and teacher unions to eliminate the Department of Education.
Regardless of that outcome, the universal school choice movement is growing across the country; 13 states already have voucher or education savings account programs.
Congress might eventually consider a proposal to provide tax breaks for those who donate to private school voucher funds. This bill could get bipartisan support from legislators who support the concept of school choice but don’t support taxpayer-funded vouchers.
“America deserves a better system than one that prioritizes bureaucracy over results,” said Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.).
