Education
The issue of Education is important to our district and to my work in Congress.
As a general matter, education is something that is usually best handled at the local level. Local communities and school boards know what their students need on a day to day basis far better than anyone in Washington, D.C. Dictates from the federal government about what shall or shall not be taught are generally misguided.
That being said, there is a role for the federal government in education. The federal government has had a long standing role in education, beginning in the Civil War era and expanding as our nation faced collective challenges, such as the Cold War and ending segregated schools. In 1980, President Carter elevated the Department of Education to a Cabinet level agency, and since then the Department’s reach has grown to over 133,000 schools and 56 million students at the elementary and secondary levels.
One can question if we are making good use of our money. As of 2004, the United States spent more per pupil for secondary education than virtually every other country in the developed world. Yet the academic performance of our young people is not on par with that spending. In these times of financial stress and deficit spending, we have to look at what results the taxpayers are actually getting for the money being spent.
The Department of Education’s discretionary spending stood at $37 billion in 2008; in 2009, the Department received nearly $100 billion through President Obama’s stimulus package; and the President’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget requested $50 billion. In the wake of our nation’s staggering debt, some have suggested eliminating the Department of Education entirely, in order to save these billions of dollars. I do not see that the case for eliminating the Department of Education has been made, however, I do agree that we need to allocate our education funds wisely and more efficiently than ever before. My preference is to focus and allocate funds in a manner that promotes student-teacher dialogue.
While education accountability programs such as No Child Left Behind were enacted into law with the best of intentions, educators, parents, and students across the country agree that the system has not done what it was intended to do, but instead is a huge federal outlay of monies for little return. Federal laws that force a “one size fits all” approach across the country typically fail as one size and one method does not fit all. I firmly believe that we must empower local educators to execute teaching methods as they see fit to meet their students’ needs, and that the federal government should act as a supportive resource in this mission, not a dictator of unfunded mandates that leave school officials helpless to educate their community’s children in a fitting manner.
For more information concerning my work and views on Education, please contact my Washington, DC office.
I look forward to your feedback.
Thank you.
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