Invest in Education—Not the Department of Education
If an investment yields stagnant or negative returns despite increased funding, the rational thing to do is back off. This logic rarely applies in government, but we’re in a unique moment. The U.S. Department of Education—which has long exemplified the sunk-cost fallacy with past investments motivating continued spending—faces possible closure as President Donald Trump’s administration pushes to devolve education back to the states.
First, let’s be clear: The department traditionally funds only 8 percent to 10 percent of K-12 education, and new Secretary of Education Linda McMahon seems rightly concerned that not enough of that money goes toward actual instruction. The Trump administration first moved to cut half of the department’s bureaucratic jobs and may now attempt to eliminate it altogether. Officials also pledge to maintain the “services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely” while key funding is brought “closer to states, localities, and more importantly, students.”
Doing more with less may be possible. Here’s why.
An investor would notice that since its 1979 establishment, the Education Department’s budget has ballooned from $14 billion to around $100 billion. That’s more than its spending from 1980 to 1985. Similar increases have occurred at the state and local levels, which provide over 90 percent of K-12 funding. In 1980, total per-pupil spending (from local, state, and federal sources) was a
Article from Reason.com
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