“Education is our most important national investment,” stated President Jimmy Carter at his 1979 signing of the bill to create the Department of Education. “Our ability to advance both economically and technologically, our country’s entire intellectual and cultural life, depend on the success of our great educational enterprise.”
Hindsight is 20/20. President Carter was correct that our national health depends on our education system. He had noble intentions to improve it. But he was incorrect that the right approach was the creation of a new federal bureaucracy.
Today, 45 years after the Department was established, educational outcomes have fallen, and trillions of taxpayer dollars have gone to waste. Because of this, President Trump campaigned on the idea of returning education to the states. As Secretary, this has been my most important mandate—the final mission of eliminating our federal education bureaucracy to the fullest extent allowable by law, and empowering states to lead. To prepare for this transition, I have embarked on a tour of all 50 states to review their best educational practices and collaborate with state leaders on scaling those practices nationwide.
State leaders have used this Returning Education to the States Tour to highlight what is working. Some states displayed impressive implementation of evidence-based literacy instruction and the Science of Reading, while others demonstrated impressive growth in school choice initiatives. Others displayed investments in cutting-edge Career and Technical Education programs that teach adults and youth about future technologies like AI and nuclear reactors. To use a phrase that was coined by Louis Brandeis, a justice on the Supreme Court, states are the “laboratories of educational democracy.” They are on the forefront of educational innovation in areas where the federal bureaucracy has gotten in the way. Visiting with state education officials on this tour is a powerful demonstration of how local leadership can spur nationwide change.
When I visited Indiana, for example, I saw a literal educational laboratory: the first and only digitally-controlled nuclear reactor in the nation at Purdue University. This PUR-1 facility is used to teach nuclear physics and reactor engineering, with fully remote capabilities for both operation and instruction. Programs like these will train our next generation of nuclear scientists and operators as we enhance our national nuclear program. State leaders must be given the authority to respond to the decline in our skilled workforce in a manner that is specific to their own industries. I also went to Oxford, Mississippi to witness firsthand what has been called the “Mississippi Miracle”—a statewide reinstitution of the Science of Reading, which improves reading scores through phonics instruction, reading comprehension, and early awareness of learning disorders. Thanks to the Science of Reading, students at the Early Childhood Learning center in Oxford have excelled—and the smiling faces of these confident kids reminded me why our policy reforms matter.
Sending education back to the states is a recognition—a celebration—of successes like these on the state level. The federal government is not giving up on education. We are recognizing the power of delegating educational authority to the states, as the founders intended.
I look forward to visiting the rest of the country—and maybe your school!—during this tour. I hope you will welcome me to your state and put your unique local educational model on display. To follow us on the tour or find out how you can participate, visit our Returning Education to the States Tour website. For America’s future generations, I am eager to usher in the golden age of education with you all.
