It’s Time to Abolish the Department of Education — Here’s Why | Episode 4

But the thing is, even though this executive order would be historic, it would be hugely impactful,

Trump can't just abolish the Department of Education with a signature. The Department of Education was created through an act of Congress, so it must be abolished by a vote in Congress.
However, welcome back to another episode of The Brett Cooper Show. We have some updates for you all.
I'm so honored. I'm so excited to inform you all that I've gotten a pop filter.
So the days of me blasting in your ears and you hearing literally every single piece of my annunciation, hopefully those days are over. Also guys, I read your comments.
I removed the headphones. You know, I got these really cool headphones that you saw in the previous episode and also you'll see them in an episode that I pre-recorded for next week.
But I got these really cool headphones. They're from the 70s.
We got them fixed up so that I could use them. I put it on and it just didn't feel right.
And oddly, I just felt so weird wearing them when I saw comments being like, Brett, you don't need the headphones anymore. So I have officially ditched them.
We're back to the original setting. Happy to be here.
But guys, today we need to talk about something that is near and dear to my heart. We need to talk about the state of education.
If you guys have been watching my content for the last three years, even before the last three years, because this is something I would write about constantly and talk about in my social media videos, we need to talk about education. And more specifically, what the future holds for education under President Trump, because Trump has been signing executive orders left and right.
And I know it is pissing off the left because they think that he is abusing his power, but honestly, he is doing exactly what he promised us. I mean, the theme of Trump's presidency thus far is promises made, promises kept, and listen, we are getting exactly what we voted for and we are very happy.
I mean, from keeping men out of women's sports just a couple of days ago, which was just incredibly historic if you guys have not seen that photo of Trump signing the executive order surrounded by young female athletes, it was, I mean, truly brought tears to my eyes. So many years of hard work came to that moment.
It was just incredible. I mean, from that to directing our government to unseal the JFK records, so much has happened.
And next up in the slate of executive orders is apparently the future of the Department of Education. And TLDR, Trump wants to abolish it.
But as are many things in our political landscape right now, education is a very heated issue. And a lot of people don't understand how this would work if Trump would even be able to abolish it.
They don't understand why people even want to get rid of the Department of Education. And they're very concerned with what happens after the Department of Education has been abolished.
So we're going to try to break all of that down for you guys, answer some questions, but before we do, if you want ad-free episodes, a weekly advice video from me, and an exclusive newsletter for subscribers only, make sure to check out my subscriber platform, Cooper Confidential. We have the link right here.
We will also have it in the description below, along with my exclusive launch merch. But without further ado, let's of course get back into the topic.
So abolishing the Department of Education has been something that has been talked about for years at this point, but in the grand political sense, it has kind of been a fringe issue. Many conservatives and Republicans in Congress are very much against this.
They support the Department of Education, and so this issue has really been propped up by libertarians like Justin Amash and limited government conservatives like my favorite, Massey and Rand Paul. And Thomas Massey has actually tried to abolish the Department of Education multiple times at this point.
It feels like he is constantly reintroducing a bill to abolish it completely. And yet it never happens.
And as recently as last month, he reintroduced it yet again. On January 31st, he said, I just reintroduced H.R.
899,-sentence bill to terminate the Federal Department of Education and return power back to teachers and parents. This is it, the entire bill.
And the bill reads, be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, section one, terminate the Department of Education, and that's it. Literally one line, it is pretty epic.
But of course, that would never pass in our modern government because, as we know, bills have to be like 700 pages long and chock full of ridiculous random things that our government wants to spend money on. So, of course, this has not passed.
But with Trump's comeback with his focus on slimming down government with Elon Musk's influence and the influence of Doge, eliminating this incredibly bloated, incredibly corrupt government department seems more possible than ever. And this time around, with this reintroduction, Massey actually has 30, 30 Republican co-sponsors for this bill.
So times are obviously changing, but 30 co-sponsors is still not enough. One article reads, if a bill were to move forward in the House, the GOP would still have to pull support from lawmakers outside of their 53-member Senate majority to reach the 60-vote threshold they need for the legislation to pass.
So at this point, we gotta keep educating people and we gotta pray, which you can do with Hallow. Guys, I am so excited to share that this episode is sponsored by my friends over at Hallow.
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And maybe we can all work together to pray for the state of education because Lord knows our country needs it. Even though Massey has 30 Republican co-sponsors, even though Trump is talking about it, people are still against this.
And it makes sense because getting rid of anything, education, dealing with education will always be difficult as it is a very emotional and personal issue for people involving their children. And in my opinion, this is because they often conflate the existence of the Department of Education with the existence of public education in the United States, which is just simply not the case.
I think that this comes down to most people not even knowing the history of the Department of Education and the fact that it was never really supposed to have the power or the budget that it does today. I mean, like most government agencies, it has obviously overstepped its bounds.
I mean, most people don't even know that it is a relatively new government department. In fact, Jimmy Carter, who just passed away, he was the one who created

the Department of Education. He signed it into law in 1979.
And somehow, just to give you an

example, somehow over the last 40 odd years, their budget has ballooned from $14 billion to over

$238 billion. That is insane.
But what is even more insane is that over these 40 years, over

Thank you. from $14 billion to over $238 billion.
That is insane. But what is even more insane is that over these 40 years, over that insane increase in spending and in budget, there has been no improvement in American education.
Just look at this graph from the Cato Institute. This is the trends in American public schooling since 1970.
So the blue line right here is the total cost. The amount that we as taxpayers are spending on American education, that obviously has skyrocketed.
Oh, employees have skyrocketed. We're paying more people.
We see where our money is going. And then let's look at reading scores, math scores, science scores.
Oh, they've stayed exactly the same. There has been no improvement in the slightest.
Now to give you guys a bit more backstory and context on this department and on this issue as a whole, I called my friend Ryan Gerduski, who is the founder of the 1776 Project PAC, which is reforming school boards across the country, is trying to reform education. He is a genius on all things American education, and he broke down the history of the Department of Education like this.
Before there was a Department of Education, it was something called the Office of Education. That came about like right after the Civil War in 1867.
And the purpose of that was just to collect data on schools and on school, how they were performing, what books they were reading, make a document, give it to Congress. That was basically the entire thing.
And then when Lyndon Johnson becomes president in the 1960s, he says, hey, we really need to revamp education. The federal government needs to get really involved.
And he creates Title I, which is about how to distribute money to local municipalities across the country, especially low-performing, poor municipalities. And education fundamentally changes at that point once money is really involved.
Jimmy Carter runs on the idea that he's going to create a Department of Education. This is a big campaign promise to the teachers' unions.
And it revamps education and broadens the scope of federal authority in the way that the federal government works with education. And like I said at the beginning, and many of you know this, like I said, education is near and dear to my heart.
This is probably the political issue that I care about the most. I feel like I have a stake in this as a young person that recently came out of the education system.
I feel like I tried every different form of homeschooling and public schooling. I went to community college.
I went to a formal university. I basically tried everything except Catholic school at this rate.
And I know that there are problems. But the one thing that really stood out to me that I learned from Ryan when I interviewed him was that all of the intended functions of the Department of Education already existed in our federal government prior to 1979, prior to the department actually being created.
They were just broken up into different departments based on what those departments' specialties were. They were not under one huge umbrella.
And creating the Department of Education consolidated all of it and gave this department and the unions that lobbied for the creation of this department major power and control, as Ryan also covered. Listen here.
Many of the functions of the Department of Education were happening pre the creation, but they happen within different departments. This consolidates them and brings it all under one house, and it really gives the teachers unions representation and also creates a massive budget.
All the unions definitely create huge pressure. The teachers union is one of the largest unions in the country and depending on what state you live in they could be the largest in any given region.
And guys to this day the people who have the most control over the Department of Education, who are the major lobbyists, the major motivators behind everything they do, and that would be the teachers unions, quickly followed by the guidance counselor union. And if you don't know about the power of teachers unions, maybe we'll have to do an entire episode just dedicated to that because it is truly insane.
And based on the graph that we just looked at from the Cato Institute, it seems like these unions, these major lobbyists, the motivators behind the Department of Education have cared a lot more about lining their pockets, about hiring more administrators, obviously, because the staff is growing and pushing political ideologies instead of improving American education. In fact, in a recent op-ed for The Hill, Representative Harriet Hegman spoke on this perfectly.
She wrote, that money, in other words, the, you know, $238 billion, hasn't been effectively used to educate our young. It has disappeared into the maw of the Department of Education

with no accountability for failure. The departments not related to education activities are also well

known. Federal bureaucrats, for example, spent three years seeking to replace the word sex in

federal education amendments to the Civil Rights Act with sexual orientation and gender identity.

Thank you. also well known.
Federal bureaucrats, for example, spent three years seeking to replace the word sex in federal education amendments to the Civil Rights Act with sexual orientation and gender identity. They have interfered with teachers' ability to remove disruptive and dangerous students from their classrooms, and they have promoted a seemingly endless stream of woke policies at the expense of our cohesiveness and to undermine pride in being American.
The result? They are turning out generations of children who can't read or do math and believe that America is evil. Hence why so many lawmakers and so many conservatives like myself want to see this department dismantled.
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But obviously, right now, this noise and this disruption to our education system has not been silenced. It is in full force, and it is not positively impacting the quality of our children's education in the slightest.
In fact, by taking power away from the states and parents parents, many argue that it has only made education worse, not just stagnant. And so as part of his 2024 campaign, one of the ideas that Trump ran on, one of the promises that he ran on, was abolishing this department in its entirety and sending power back to the states.
Just take a listen from one of his rallies. I'm gonna take the Department of Education, close it in Washington, let the states run their own education.
We spend more money per pupil than any other nation in the world by far, and yet we're ranked at the bottom of every list. Which is all true, which should be incredibly embarrassing to every American.
It should be a top priority for Americans to figure out how to fix this so that we can serve our children and our students better. And yet on the left and with many Republicans, the only solution they seem to come up with is more money.
But we are already spending an insane amount of money. And again, going back to that graph, you can see where the money goes.
It goes to the unions. It goes to the administrators.
It does not even go to the teachers, which we're going to talk about later. But going back to Trump and going back to his promises, you know, promises made, promises kept, just this week the Wall Street Journal revealed that Trump is actively taking steps to ready an executive order that would, quote, dismantle the Department of Education.
So apparently that is next in the pipeline. They wrote, Trump advisors way plan to dismantle Education Department.
Administration officials are discussing executive order that could shut down key functions of the agency, and that was published on February 3rd. This has got people very excited.
It was trending for like 24 hours on X, but the thing is, even though this executive order would be historic, it would be hugely impactful, Trump can't just abolish the Department of Education with a signature. The Department of Education was created through an act of Congress, so it must be abolished by a vote in Congress.
However, with an executive order, Trump can break it apart. And that is what people are speculating that he'll be doing.
Here is how Ryan broke it down. We want the Department of Education, certain things in the Department of Education to still happen.
We want Title IX to be enforced, right? We don't want biological women to compete with biological men in sports. That is partly Title IX.
My guess is he's probably going to move Title I into basically give it back to the states almost immediately and have very limited federal interaction as far as distribution of state money goes. And then Title IX will probably move to the Department of Justice is what I imagine, or maybe HHS, Department of Health and Human Services.
Whatever they have to preserve, Pell Grants will get moved to, maybe the Treasury or something like that. Whatever they have to preserve will get moved to other federal departments.
The Department of Education will probably be a building with no lights on. So TLDR, how this would work, is that many of the original core functions of the department, pre-Department of Education, pre-Jimmy Carter era, they would still exist.
Title I would be protected. It would be just moved under a different jurisdiction.
Title IX, everything that we fought for, for women, for protecting women, that would be protected. It would just be moved.
It would all be reallocated and shifted around to break up this power monopoly that this department has over our education system and over the states. And you just gotta know, and I love this, that the teachers unions are losing their minds.
Because remember, they were the ones who wanted this in the first place. They are the ones who benefit the most.
They are the ones who have the most power over everything this department does. So I want you to take a listen to my good friend, Randy Weingart.
Randy Weingart, if you didn't know, is one of the people that I despise most on the face of the earth. She's the president of the country's largest and most powerful teachers union.
And she recently did an interview where she was screeching about Trump's plans for the Department of Education and how this would take money away from students and instead line the pockets of billionaires. Where's the money going? Who's taking it? Are they trying to take that money that kids get for tax cuts for billionaires? What's going on? That's why we have to see what they're doing.
It is illegal to take that money out of children's mouths and give it to billionaires. See, this is why this issue is so emotional, because they say things like this.
We're taking money away from your kids. Your kids are going to go hungry.
They're lining the pockets of billions. None of that is happening.
Literally not in the slightest. Also, I love at the beginning, she goes, where's the money going? The money wouldn't exist in the first place because we would stop taxing people.
People, American citizens, the parents of these students would be able to keep more of their money. That is where it would go.
It just wouldn't go to you, Randy, which I think is what you were most concerned about. Because again, none of what you just screeched about and basically burst into tears over is happening.
None of it. Yes, you might make less money.
Your $500,000 a year salary might decrease. You might have less power, but children will still be able to go to public school.
Children will still have access to school lunches if that is what you're concerned about. Teachers will still be paid as their salaries are set by the state.
They're not even set by the federal department of education. And I just want to be on record saying that I am in favor of anything that decreases the political power of these teachers unions, that decreases the power of people like Randi Weingarten, who use her position to further her own political ideologies and to make more money for herself.
So yes, Randi, that is a long way of saying that money will be allocated differently. That will change, but it will be sent to the states.
So I don't think you're going to see a massive slashing as far as spending goes. It's really who does the spending and where.
So I don't think you're going to see most of it go away. There will be somewhat of a fingerprint still from the federal government on education, and then the rest will be deciphered by the states and local government.
Which interestingly, you seem to support, Randy. States and localities run education.
They basically, that's where 90% of the funding for education goes. They already want it, they should run it, the federal government should not run it.
Oh, I'm so glad we can all agree, Randy, that the state should run education, that the federal, with your $238 billion budget, should not be running the American educational system. So maybe that faux emotional outrage that we just saw is really not about the students, but it's about you and your pals losing political power.
So hopefully, guys, those insights from Ryan, that brief history about the Department of Education, Trump's plans, how that would actually work, hopefully that clears this up for you, explains why this is happening and what you can expect. So yes, things hopefully are going to change, but hopefully if this works the way that we want, fingers crossed, this means that students will be getting a better education.
This means that parents and states and school boards, the people who actually understand their local students and understand what they need, will be given power again. And hopefully this means that our education system will stop being run into the ground by a small sect of self-serving bureaucrats.
So in my opinion, this is something that everyone, regardless of whether you are on the left or the right, should be excited about. And if you are worried about this department being abolished in its entirety and that causing something that we've not planned for, according to Ryan, Republicans don't even have the votes to do that as it stands now to abolish the department.
So maybe it's something we don't even need to worry about. Congress has to vote for it basically.
He needs the 60 senators and there's 53 Republicans and I don't think most of the Republicans, not most, but there's a lot of Republicans who would not support abolishing the Department of Education. So a formal closing it down is probably not going to happen, but reducing its size and scope of what it does will probably, you know, happen.
So again, support for your students is not going away. Protections over students are not going away.
Aid for school lunches is not going away. The Pell Grants aren't going away.
They will hopefully just be run by people who are actually involved in those specific issues. Hopefully the person that is now overseeing school lunches will be RFK Jr.
And hopefully this reallocation means that students' education will not just be increasing, but also their health will be increasing. I also think that this could help spark fresh involvement from parents and students on the local level because I want you guys to know that you actually have way more power than you think.
Like we really, honestly, do not have to wait for any of this to happen on the federal level. We do not need to wait for this executive order or for any of this to take effect to make a change.
And the school system in Miami-Dade County in Florida is a testament to this. Just listen.
In some districts like in Miami-Dade, which is a conservative majority school board, you're seeing dynamic changes. You're seeing Singapore math in the classrooms.
You're seeing classical reading levels now, reading going to K through three, soon to be K through five. They're trying things.
And when school boards are actually dynamic and have the ability to really make reforms, you're able to see big improvements in education. I mean, all of that is incredible.
They are getting a classical education in elementary school thanks to what the school board is doing and what they are willing to try and implement. Another great example that Ryan talked about were the states of Mississippi and Louisiana, who had the best student rebound in the country, in the entire nation, post-COVID because of the steps that the local school boards and local legislators took.
In fact, in Mississippi, fourth graders had achieved the number one spot in the nation for gains on the NAEP in reading and in math, with fourth graders scoring higher than the nation's public school average in math and tying the nation in reading. In addition to that, eighth graders had outpaced the nation for growth in math and held steady in reading.
Nationally, scores for most NAEP subjects dropped or remained flat. And in Louisiana, the results were similar.
And the superintendent there credits this to getting back to the basics and credits it to states' rights. And he said this in a recent interview from just a couple days ago.
He said, I operate from what I call the brave plan, going back to basics, redesigning systems, accelerating parental rights, valuing teachers, and expanding educational freedom. It's so funny how things get better and move more efficiently and faster when you remove the influence of government.
He goes on and he says, this department is organized to accomplish those things. That is the way that we push out resources.
And it's what drives our conversation with community members, policymakers, and educators. It is a comprehensive set of reforms we put in place and it's really encouraging to see movement.
Right now we also have a ton of alignment between our governor's office, our legislator, our state board, and our agency. And that united front helps with implementation in schools.
I also think that we execute really well. I've had conversations with individuals in other states that have attempted similar reforms, but the execution wasn't what it needed to be.
We are really intentional about both the initial launch of policies, but also support afterwards." And then continuing on, he said,

He said, many schools and systems and educators across the country have chased shiny things,

and sometimes even ideologies that aren't necessarily relevant to simply teaching kids to read and do math.

At a time when funding is becoming less plentiful, which is odd because, again, $238 billion budget,

that really shouldn't be the case, states need to look at academic returns on investment. It's a really good time to focus on schooling, particularly in elementary schools.
I mean, seriously, it is comical that this is something that a superintendent has to say, that really it's a good time to focus on schooling. Shouldn't that have been the focus of the federal government of the Department of Education for the last 40 odd years? No, no, because they focused on ideologies.
They focused on giving power to administrators and these teacher unions instead of actually helping the kids. And what makes me even more excited about states like Louisiana and Mississippi, Alabama was not far behind them, is that these are the states that get mocked and shamed.
These are the low-income, backwards, conservative states that the left and the teachers unions love to mock and demonize. They're the ones who are the laughingstock of America, but obviously they're doing something right.
All the coastal cities that boast about their education system, sorry, you can't keep up with Louisiana and Mississippi because, as the superintendent said, they're focusing on schooling. And back to that point about local school boards and parents being able to make change as you're seeing in Louisiana and Mississippi, I have always said that the only way I would run for public office, because truly that seems like the worst thing on earth, I would rather drag myself across hot coals than do that.
The only way I would do that was if it was for a school board, because change happens there. Again, even without the federal government and you do not need to be a parent or an educator to be on the board.
I mean, some of the most effective change makers recently have been young people. Some as young as 18 years old who are hungry and motivated and have just recently left the school system.
So they intimately know the problems. They intimately know solutions that can help students that can get this system back on track.
So to sum all of this up, hopefully Trump is able to make this happen. I hope that he is able to dismantle and restructure American education, maybe even abolishing the Department of Education in its entirety.
I would love for that to happen. I would love to see the glee on Thomas Massey's face if he is finally able to pass this one-sentence bill.
And this certainly will make things better and easier coming from the federal level. It will eliminate a lot of financial bloat.
It will eliminate a lot of corruption, which is obviously a good thing. And we should all be advocating for whether you are on the left or the right.
But per usual, what I want you to remember is the change always starts with you at home. So if there is something that you do not like about your school system, if there is something that you do not like about your child's education, the power is in your hands.
And if you

are a student, there is so much that you can do. And I urge you to look into Ryan's work with the

1776 Project Pack. And with all of this combined, after 40 plus years, we will finally, hopefully,

be focusing on improving American education because truly that is the end goal.