Key Takeaways:
- Government bureaucracies always seek to grow and expand their power — the Department of Education is no exception.
- From 1980 to 2024, the Education Department expanded its power from 5 programs to 250.
- President Trump and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon are seeking to dismantle the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states.
- They are transferring Education Department responsibilities to other cabinet departments as a first step.
- Trump wants to end the federal student loan program and require colleges and universities to fund student loans.
- Even better than state control of education — which would still mean an education bureaucracy — would be competitive, privately-funded and controlled free-market education.
- To convert the public school system to a free-market education will require “baby steps” over several years.
Government-run education has failed.
Not partially. Not accidentally. Completely.
It produces astonishingly low academic outcomes.
It costs taxpayer more every year with less to show for it.
It indoctrinates children, fails teaching the kids and tramples parental rights.
And like every monopoly in history, the absence of competition has created waste, inefficiency, and institutional decay.
When government controls education, you don’t get excellence.
You get political power, bureaucratic bloat, and systemic failure.
What is the solution for better education?
A competitive free market always produces the highest-quality products at the lowest price.
The more the government controls an industry, the higher will be the price and the lower will be the quality.
This is because of the two unwritten but immutable laws of government bureaucracies:
- Bureaucracies only expand over time and spend more of your taxpayer dollars; they never shrink in size or reduce their budgets.
- Bureaucrats don’t work for you and they don’t answer to you, so they have no vested interest in serving you or benefiting you.
These bureaucratic principles apply just as much to education as they do to any other industry or business.
How do we know this?
Because test scores are always higher for kids who attend private schools or home school than they are for kids attending government-controlled public schools.
So how did we get to where we are in government-controlled public education?
And what is President Trump doing about it?
And how can you help?
Reality Alert #1 – The growth of the federal education bureaucracy.
The Department of Education (ED) began operation in 1980 with a budget of $14.6 billion and a mission of:
- promoting student achievement
- ensuring equal access to education
- administering federal financial aid
- collecting data on schools
- distributing research grants
All of these functions could be performed adequately at the state level — it was never necessary to do these tasks nationwide at the federal level.
By FY2024, the Education Department budget had climbed to$268 billion – and the number of programs had exploded from 5 to 250.
Reality Alert #2 – Dismantling of the federal education bureaucracy.
In March, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order titled “Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities.”
Its purpose is to dismantle the federal Department of Education.
On November 18th, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a news release, “The Trump administration is taking bold action to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states.”[1]
A president can’t eliminate a cabinet-level federal agency — only Congress has the authority to eliminate the Education Department.
But a president can — according g to the Economy Act of 1933 — reorganize a federal agency and move functions from one agency to another.[2]
A senior Education Department official said that the Economy Act has been used at least 200 times by past presidents – including former President Biden.[3]
Here’s what President Trump and Secretary McMahon have done so far:
- moved grant administration for K-12 schools and universities to the Department of Labor
- moved Native American tribal school programs to the Department of Interior
- moved accreditation for foreign medical schools and federally-funded child programs for parents enrolled in colleges to the Department of Health and Human Services
- moved international education and foreign language programs to the State Department
- Secretary McMahon has laid off half of her staff and has closed ED offices outside of Washington, DC.
Secretary McMahon has suggested other transfers of responsibility that haven’t happened yet.
Reality Alert #3 – Replacing the federal education bureaucracy.
Transferring federal Education Department functions and services to other cabinet-level federal agencies is a stopgap measure only.
It streamlines and reduces the size of the federal education bureaucracy – but it doesn’t eliminate it entirely…
It is NOT a permanent solution.
Privatized, competitive free-market education — developed, produced and administered at the local level — is the most effective, the most efficient, and the most economical education.
Private Christian schools and other privately-run schools prove this.
These schools always provide better educational results – higher test scores, higher graduation rates, higher college acceptance rates – at a lower cost per student.
To convert the public school system into a free-market education enterprise will require “baby steps” of change over several years.
Here are a few of the necessary steps:
- Return control of K-12 education curriculum and standards to the state level.
- Allow free and open school choice by parents.
- Close underperforming schools – as determined by parents who choose not to send their children to them.
- Dissolve the national teacher unions, power and end tenure for teachers.
- Return the funding of K-12 education to state and local jurisdictions.
- End the coercive property tax funding for public education and begin requiring parents to fund the education of their own children.
- End the federal student loan program.
- Encourage educational entities at all levels to set up their own student loan programs and work-study programs for students who are old enough to work.
President Trump wants to require colleges and universities to administer their own student loan programs – not the federal government that President Obama established.
Many colleges and universities have large endowments that can be used to provide student loans.
For K-12 education, states and local school districts can apply to private foundations for grants so that they can provide loans to parents to help pay for the education of their children.
Parents need to accept the truth that they are responsible for the education of their own children — not the state, not the federal government, and not property owners who have no school-age children.
And parents need to accept the truth that their responsibility requires a financial commitment.
If K-12 education stops being free, several things will result:
- Parents will take a much greater interest in the successful education of their children.
- Parents will learn the importance of budgeting and managing their financial resources.
- Parents will have a greater voice in education matters because what they pay for, they control.
- Sources of funding for school tuition will spring up in new places such as:
* churches
* foundations
* non-profit tithe agencies
* parent-teacher associations
* local neighborhood or school-district groups
* voluntary contributions to individual schools or school districts
* tax credits for education tuition and books
* scholarship funds for low-income families
* … and more.
Reality Alert #4 – How you can help.
There are several things you can do to help encourage the return of education to state, county, local community and parental control.
Here are some suggestions:
- Write to your local representative in Congress and to your two state Senators, urging them to support the Trump administration’s efforts to shift educational responsibilities from the federal government to the states.
- Attend your local school board meetings and let your voice be heard regarding curriculum, textbooks, required reading lists and other educational requirements in your school district.
- If you have school-aged children, get involved in your kids’ school parent-teacher association.
- Advocate strongly for school choice in your school district and state.
- If you are able financially, consider donating to a local Christian school or to a scholarship fund for private education in your area.
- Get my book The Great Deception: 10 Shocking Dangers and the Blueprint for Rescuing the American Dream. Read Chapter 9: “Danger #8: School Indoctrination and Government Control of Education.”
Click HERE to order the book online.
You can order the book on Amazon HERE.
Or get the audiobook version HERE and on Kindle HERE.
You can also get an autographed edition online HERE or by phone at 615-814-6633 (M-F 10 am to 3 pm).
You can also send a check for $26.13 (including shipping) payable to Media Specialists and send it to this address:
Media Specialists
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What do you think? Comment on this article or write me at [email protected].
FAQs:
- Shouldn’t the federal government be involved in education to make sure states are maintaining educational standards?
A. Educational standards should be evaluated and maintained at the local school district/school board level, not at the federal level. Read the shocking report on Baltimore’s school system on pages 216 and 217 of my book The Great Deception: 10 Shocking Dangers and the Blueprint for Rescuing the American Dream. The federal Department of Education is failing in its mission. - Aren’t federal grants for educational research a good way to improve educational quality?
A. Federal education bureaucrats are spending your money, not their own. They don’t care what they are funding. A grant funded by the ED under the Biden administration gave $70,000 to a doctoral student to create an interactive map identifying “queer” and transgender communities in Czechia and Slovakia.[4] Research grants should be administered by the state in which the grantee lives or works. - Can President eliminate the Department of Education?
A. No. Only Congress can eliminate a cabinet-level department. - If President Trump can’t eliminate the Education Department, how can he dismantle it??
A. The Economy Act of 1933 allows presidents to reorganize federal agencies and transfer responsibilities from one agency to another. He and the Secretary of Education are transferring ED responsibilities to other cabinet-level departments. - If ED responsibilities are being transferred to other federal agencies, won’t education still be managed at the federal level?
A. The transfers of responsibility are intended to improve efficiency and accountability. The end goal is to shift control of education to the state level. Some functions such as grant administration and other funding programs will take longer to shift.
About Craig Huey:
Craig Huey is the founder of Huey Alert and a nationally recognized conservative Christian strategist, author, and speaker who helps Americans understand—and act at—the intersection of faith, politics, and freedom.
Key credentials and experience:
- Founder of a marketing and political consulting agency that’s won 124 marketing awards active since Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign
- Advertising agency for small and large corporations.
- Political consultant to winning candidates nationwide using geofencing and advance AI and digital marketing.
- Interviewed in 148 TV, radio, and podcast appearances during the 2024 election cycle
- Speaker for hundreds of organizations, including over 100 churches
- Publisher of The Huey Alert newsletter
- Co-host of The Huey Alert Podcast with his wife, Shelly
Author of multiple books, including:
- The Deep State: 15 Surprising Dangers You Should Know
- The Great Deception: 10 Shocking Dangers and the Blueprint for Rescuing the American Dream
- The Christian Voter: 7 Non-Negotiables for Voting For, Not Against, Your Values
- The New Multichannel, Integrated Marketing: 28 Trends for Creating a Multichannel, Integrated Campaign to Boost Your Profits Now
- Craig has been regularly on national media multiple times such as FOX, FOX Business, OAN and Newsmax.
He doesn’t analyze politics from the sidelines.
He helps win battles that shape the future.
[1]https://lists.theepochtimes.com/archive/rBXwyrW64d/usJwMxGAB/Ev0bV50ov
[2] Aaron Gifford, https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/trump-admins-dismantling-of-education-department-heres-where-things-stand-5947171?utm_source=Morningbrief&src_src=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2025-11-24&src_cmp=mb-2025-11-24&utm_medium=email&est=7tXPsVTrdObGxA0RkAaEWLoe6l%2FfBwyvp0R89kvexCh8rv4kC7WvVTcjGkfB
[3] Ibid.
[4]https://lists.theepochtimes.com/archive/rBXwyrW64d/usJwMxGAB/Ev0bV50ov