That aside, the goals of the Department of Education are the same today as they were
in 1979, and they’re straightforward: increase public participation in federal education
programs, ensure equal access, and improve the quality of education. The careful reader
will notice that part of the department’s goal is to increase the use of government education
offerings. So if it feels like the government is trying to get you to choose their education
program, that’s because it is. By design, the Department of Education is not a neutral party
when it comes to the education option you choose for your family.
I’ll leave it to you, dear reader, to decide for yourself if the US education system has
improved since 1979. But our national report card, which has measured student academic
achievement since 1971, presents less than impressive results.[1]
In the 46 years since it was created, the department has spent more than $3 trillion
($3,000,000,000,000.00), and reading scores for 13-year-olds have improved by just 1 point
on a 500 point scale, or 0.2 percent.[2]
Math scores have improved by 5 points, or 1 percent.
Both scores peaked in 2012, but even then the long-term improvement was only 1.6 percent
for reading and 3.8 percent for math. And they’ve been declining ever since. Yippee.
Source: “NAEP Long-Term Trend Assessment Results: Reading and Mathematics,” NAEP, accessed April
30, 2025, https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ltt/?age=13.
As a result of these poor scores and a host of cultural issues, there has been much debate
about the effectiveness of the department. That said, even the modest improvements in
scores are often used as a sort of post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy to support the continued
work of the Department of Education. That translates to “after this, therefore because of this.”
It’s a logical fallacy where someone argues that because something happened before
another thing, the first thing caused it. It’s logical hogwash, but it’s often used to try and
justify things. In this case, the argument is that the existence of the department and its funds,
which make up between 7 and 23 percent of each state’s spending on education, are the
reason for those marginal improvements.
Since the 1980s there have been a host of attempts to reform the Department of Education,
and while change has been accomplished, significant improvements to the educational
attainment of American children have not. The presidential administrations in 1983, 1988,
1992, 2000, and 2008 all worked to reform the department through a variety of initiatives.
You might remember A Nation at Risk, No Child Left Behind, Common Core, or the
Every Student Succeeds Act—these are just some of the reforms that have been attempted
to improve outcomes. Now we are seeing another effort to reform or even eliminate the
Department of Education.
Thus far each of these reform attempts has been something homeschooling families watch
with reasonable skepticism—broad spectrum changes in education law could be used by
opponents of homeschooling to try and curtail our freedom. As a matter of good governance,
nuanced and targeted legislation is usually a better way to make law, since it allows people to
see what is specifically being proposed and how that will affect them, rather than leaving the
details to unelected staffers and regulatory agencies.
The current approach to reform, however, is relatively new. Not since Reagan proposed
eliminating the Department of Education has any serious change to the structure or existence
of the department been attempted. Of course, serious disruption to the department creates
a lot of uncertainty across the parts of society affected by it, which leads to the obvious
question: What does this mean for homeschooling families?
There is a long and short answer to that. The short answer is: Nothing. The long answer
is: It depends, but in terms of direct impact on homeschooling families, the answer is
still nothing.
This is for two reasons. The first reason is that the Constitution protects parental rights in a
broad sense. The second reason is that homeschooling, like the vast majority of education law,
is within the power of the states, not the federal government.
Each state has slightly different laws under which homeschooling is governed, and those
laws are not directly impacted by anything coming from Washington. Thus whether the
Department of Education is shut down, limited, or remains the same, homeschooling is not
directly affected by the change.
Of course, there is a caveat to this. If the department is changed, it’s possible that some states
will take action. But we can’t determine what that would look like at this time.
HSLDA has seen a remarkable number of state-specific legislative actions over the past year.
Some of them are helping to advance homeschool freedom, and some of them are putting
homeschool freedom in peril. Through it all, our course remains the same. We must stay alert,
watch proposed legislation, and engage our state lawmakers as needed.
Endnotes
