What exactly is Asha for Education?

What does the U.S. Department of Education do, exactly?

• For instance, I never see a textbook branded by the department of education. Each state and university it appears determines its own curriculum. I don't see anything like "approved by the department of education." It is often cited as a department that conservatives would like to cut. It also spends about $60 billion a year. Why not cut it?

• Answer:

  Section I below deals with what the Department of Education does. Section II addresses why many, though by no means all, conservatives have expressed a desire to abolish it or reduce its funding. I.   The Department of Education executes a number of federal programs to improve education levels and assure quality of education. Most of these programs grant money  to support education either (a) to state and local governments or (b) directly to students. The three major programs, which total approximately 70% of the Department's requested budget for 2012, are: Pell Grants - $28.6 billion (of $77.4 billion). [1] Pell Grants "provide need-based grants to low-income undergraduate and certain postbaccalaureate students to promote access to postsecondary education. Students may use their grants at any one of approximately 5,400 participating postsecondary institutions." [2] Title I Grants - $14.5 billion (of $77.4 billion). [1] Title I Grants "provide financial assistance to local educational agencies (LEAs) and schools with high numbers or high percentages of children from low-income families to help ensure that all children meet challenging state academic standards. Federal funds are currently allocated through four statutory formulas that are based primarily on census poverty estimates and the cost of education in each state. . . . In SY 2009-10 more than 56,000 public schools across the country used Title I funds to provide additional academic support and learning opportunities to help low-achieving children master challenging curricula and meet state standards in core academic subjects. For example, funds support extra instruction in reading and mathematics, as well as special preschool, after-school, and summer programs to extend and reinforce the regular school curriculum. " [3] IDEA Grants - $11.5 billion (of $77.4 billion). [1] IDEA Grants "provide formula grants to states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the secretary of the interior, freely associated states, and outlying areas to assist them in meeting the costs of providing special education and related services to children with disabilities. . . . Funds under this program are combined with state and local funds to provide a free appropriate public education (FAPE) to children with disabilities. Permitted expenditures include the salaries of special education teachers and costs associated with related services personnel, such as speech therapists and psychologists." [4] Through the use of these programs (specifically Title I Grants), the Department of Education has, in recent years, sought to incentivize local educational authorities to improve educational outcomes. This initiative was made famous under the tagline of "No Child Left Behind." The success of tying testing benchmarks to funding is as yet unclear. In addition, the Department of Education administers the Federal Direct Loan Program, which provides student loans directly to college and graduate school students across the country. This program does not appear as a large item on the budget because the federal government's lowered borrowing costs have increased the spread between the cost of capital and projected income streams from loans. As a result, instead of being a positive subsidy, the loan program is now a negative one -- it turns an $8 billion dollar profit. [5] --- II.   Many conservatives have expressed a desire to eliminate the Department, or to restrict its funding. For instance, promised in his 1980 Presidential campaign to eliminate the Department were he elected, while the Republican platform in the 1996 elections made a similar promise. [6] Although reasons differ, the most common rationale seems to be that education is a fundamentally local concern that should be free from interference by the federal government. Arguments of this type often appeal to the X Amendment to the Constitution, which reads: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." As "education" is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution, many conservatives believe that the federal government has no authority in this area or, as a normative matter, should refrain from acting in this sphere. Other criticisms include that the Department is inefficient, that it stands in the way of school choice, that subsidizing higher education is regressive [7]; that subsidizing higher education artificially inflates demand and increases the cost of such education [7]; and that federal funding comes with conditions -- for instance, Title IX requirements of non-discrimination/parity between the genders [8] -- that interfere with innovation and cause various negative effects [7]. ---------- [1] - http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget12/summary/appendix1.pdf [2] - http://www2.ed.gov/programs/fpg/index.html [3] - http://www2.ed.gov/programs/titleiparta/index.html [4] - http://www2.ed.gov/programs/osepgts/index.html [5] - http://www2.ed.gov/programs/wdffdl/funding.html [6] - http://www.pbs.org/newshour/backgrounders/department_of_education.html [7] - http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/education/higher-ed-subsidies [8] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_IX