Is downsizing the U.S. Dept. of Ed really that alarming?

Flickr, Photo By: U.S. Department of State (IIP Bureau)

On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Education announced plans to reduce 1,315 staff positions, bringing the agency’s total workforce reduction to approximately 50 percent since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term.

Articles on the staff reductions were bleak: “Gutting the Department of Education will irreversibly harm students”; “Dismantling the Department of Education poses a serious threat to public education”; “The U.S. is already facing a literacy crisis and declining math performance, and students need more support, not less.”

But have federal bureaucrats increased productivity of American K-12 schools over the years, or will downsizing the bureaucracy be better for American students and their education?

While job cuts are not loved for themselves, perhaps this is one step (of many) “to restore to America the jewel of an education system it once possessed” and “heal our K-12 schools,” writes the National Association of Scholars (NAS).

According to NAS, most of the staff reductions are “inward-facing roles” — internal bureaucratic roles, and largely duplicative — and thus not expected to interfere with the agency’s statutorily required functions.

The Trump administration intends all external functions to continue as per statutory requirements—most certainly including, Title I fund distribution to disadvantaged school districts, special education, FAFSA reform, and civil rights enforcement.

Are some of the 1,315 positions “vital” to the agency’s ability to function? Perhaps. And perhaps some of those terminations will be re-examined by the department for them to change course on.

But even with the department’s hiring sprees over the years, its inefficiencies and inability to perform even its own core functions properly show it’s not a staffing problem. The lack of accountability when the department fails to do its job — the 2024 FAFSA fiasco, as an example — demonstrates that the department is too large, too complex, and too entrenched.

If you measure success based on achievement results, the trillions of dollars spent since 1965 on the collective programs within the department have failed to promote student achievement. For example, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading and math results reveal a devastating reality for students. Full service community schools fail to show a definitive academic advantage for the low-income students and students of color attending them despite the significant investment of taxpayer funds and resources required.

The case can easily be made that what the U.S. Department of Education does has mixed effects. And it doesn’t help itself by not providing clear information on the return on investment for its spending, as the NAS documents.

The debate over confining the federal government’s involvement in education policy will continue, but cutting back some of the bloat that has persisted for decades doesn’t seem to be as alarming as the persistently stagnant student academic outcomes, the ever-growing cabal of special interests that has for years leveraged the agency to expand federal expenditures, or the programs within the department that have become vessels for progressive political goals.