Some States Can't be Trusted With States' Rights

Dismantling the Department of Education

“End the indoctrination from federal bureaucrats. Empower states to focus on mastering education fundamentals.”

~Texas Governor Greg Abbott on abolishing the Department of Education

Ahhh. The “states’ rights” argument for abolishing the Department of Education.

A few states can’t be trusted with their rights. Missouri is one of them. If that sounds paternalistic, so be it. I live here and can testify.

I am a witness to the witless. The self-serving politicians. The inept lawmakers.

I can only imagine the chaos that would ensue if the GOP supermajority were tasked with taking on the rights and regulations currently monitored by the Federal Department of Education.

One thing should be said before I go on: the Department of Education does not create or impose curriculum on local schools. Nothing makes me want to bang my head on the wall like a conservative saying that the Department of Education is pushing CRT or DEI or woke ideology or *insert buzzword* into local schools. That’s a lie.

Curriculum is created at the state and local level.

My daughter brought this Social Studies textbook home in 2023. It was published in 2004.

Missouri government would be overwhelmed with trying to implement policies handed down from the federal government if the Department of Education were abolished. Missouri lawmakers are completely inadequate when delivering basic state programs for children.

Missouri has been proven incompetent over and over again when it comes to children — keeping them safe or fed or housed or alive. My state cannot be trusted to spend federal funds meant to help children. Here are just a few examples:

Missouri returned $42 million in federal funds to feed hungry kids.

Missouri doesn’t have the bandwidth to distribute federal funds. State officials returned federal funds meant for hungry kids over the summer break. The state blamed a “lack of infrastructure to support the federal program” even though Missouri was sitting on about eight billion in surplus and had time to rebuild/reconfigure infrastructure.

Our infrastructure is so bad, the state didn’t finish the 2022 distribution of funds until 2023. The state refused the funds outright in 2023.

Missouri won’t properly staff our Children’s Division.

A federal watchdog report found that 1,780 foster kids went missing in Missouri between 2018 and 2020 because of a lack of staffing and a high turnover in the Children’s Division, due mainly to poor pay. Missouri lawmakers have created a massive problem by making sure our state employees rank dead last in pay in the nation.

In the meantime, almost 2,000 foster kids went missing.

Missouri won’t properly fund classrooms.

Unlike most states, Missouri schools rely heavily on local sources to fund classrooms. The Foundation Formula funding has not grown with inflation. Missouri ranks 49th in the nation for classroom funding.

In Missouri, state funding only accounts for about 32% of per-student funding. As a result, schools rely heavily on local sources like property taxes to fund schools — in my area, if a school doesn’t receive money from a windfarm, it is likely on a four-day week.

Missouri’s starting teacher pay is 50th in the nation. Because of poor pay and poor resources, over 30% of Missouri schools are forced to run a four-day school week.

Missouri allows children to open carry guns on Missouri streets.

There’s not much to say about this egregious example of utter disregard for children’s safety except to say that any state that enforces 2A rights for toddlers should not be allowed to oversee federal programs aimed at children.

The Department of Education has caused issues in conservative minds since its inception under the Carter administration. Every Republican President since has tried in one way or another to dismantle or altogether abolish the agency and one has to wonder…why?

I know why. It is cheaper to discriminate. And, maybe all kids don’t need an education?

The Department of Education enforces Special Education requirements in public schools. The Department provides financial support and leadership to local districts to improve outcomes for children with disabilities.

The Department of Education enforces compliance. It coordinates the collection, analysis, and reporting of special education data. It ensures that The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA, is enforced and special education and related services for children with disabilities are provided by local schools.

*Special Education is expensive. When private schools claim they can produce results for fewer dollars than a public school, I hope you remember that private schools often discriminate and often do not offer Special Education classes.

The Department of Education is also tasked with enforcing Title IX. Before Title IX, girls were often left out of certain classes. They may have been steered from shop or auto body into Home Economics. Schools weren’t required to offer girl’s sports and often didn’t have an even number of sports offered to girls as opposed to boys.

Schools also didn’t have to offer equal facilities for girls and the sexual harassment of young women could run rampant with no department specifically tasked to take complaints.

By the way, didn’t some Republicans run on girl’s sports? And now they want to dismantle the federal department meant to address girl’s sports? Weird.

Abolishing the Department of Education is just the tip of the iceberg. The idea is to defund public schools nationwide.

You can run track without having access to a track for practice. You can learn Social Studies from a book old enough to vote. You can learn Science in a school without a lab. You can get an education by attending school only four days a week rather than your peers who attend a five-day week school. You can learn from teachers making $19 per hour.

You can do all of those things, but none of those things are ideal for learning.

I know a lot about defunded schools because I attended them. My children attended them. In every little town I’ve moved to in every rural state I have landed — the common theme is a rural school desperate to survive.

Some can ponder what a defunded school looks like, but I don’t need to imagine it. It’s just down the highway from my farmhouse. I see it daily. I know the kids and teachers inside the building.

I can tell you exactly what defunding and dismantling public schools looks like. Rural schools have already been stripped for parts, and if Trump’s administration can somehow tear down the Department of Education, schools across the country will look like those already suffering in rural spaces.

Politicians in states like Missouri will shrug their shoulders at teachers making $19/hour and then fight on the House floor to put the 10 Commandments in classrooms. My state lawmakers will lament reading and math levels for students and then propose a bill to lower standards for teacher prep. Politicians in Missouri will rail against public schools while stripping them of resources that they will then send to private religious schools.

I know that the needs of a community are best served at the community and state level, but it just doesn’t work in a state hellbent on dismantling public schools in the first place.

We can’t trust some states with states’ rights. Many states like my own are governed by folks who are incapable of managing services and funds. Especially those services and funds meant for children.

~Jess