Op-Ed: Rep. Riley Moore: It's time for Congress to get in the arena on the education fight

Since first opening its doors during the Carter Administration, the total number of bureaucrats working for the federal Department of Education has risen roughly 40 percent. Meanwhile, the nation that put a man on the moon and defeated the Soviet Union has fallen to the middle of the pack in math and science. It should come as no surprise that the man elected to Make America Great Again would take issue with this disastrous decline.

The American people sent President Donald Trump to Washington with a unified Republican government to reverse decades of bad decisions and steepening decline, especially in the area of education. Americans saw the Biden administration wield the Department of Education, on numerous occasions, to force radical, left-wing social engineering into classrooms nationwide, and they resoundingly rejected that overreach at the ballot box. At a time where math and reading scores for American 13-year-olds are at their lowest point in decades, the Department of Education focused their attention on a Title IX rewrite aimed at forcing men into women’s sports, bathrooms, and locker rooms.

In my home state of West Virginia, test scores paint a bleak picture of the educational status quo. Less than half of public school students are proficient in reading. Only 36 percent of students are able to do math at grade level, with fewer than a third meeting standards in science. After decades and billions of dollars spent, West Virginia families are right to demand better than what they got by handing over educational control to Washington.

President Trump’s executive order to dismantle this administrative bureaucracy will unlock new opportunities for states to meet their citizens’ needs. When Congress acts to make these changes permanent, billions of tax dollars will flow directly to states without countless federal strings attached. Funds currently paying the salaries and benefits of four thousand bureaucrats at the Department of Education can flow into creative opportunities like providing more vocational training in schools, expanding wraparound services for students who need them, or expanding educational options for families.

During my tenure as West Virginia State Treasurer, for example, I led the charge to create the Hope Scholarship Program, the widest ranging and most accessible school choice program in the country. Under the law, families can use state funds for private school tuition or homeschooling.

After the legislation was enacted and we roundly defeated the teachers union’s challenge in court, thousands of Hope families took advantage of the new opportunity to provide their children an education that meets their needs and achieves their goals. Enrollment in Hope Scholarship has grown each year because families want their tax dollars to provide a quality, individualized education — not the top-down approach the federal Department of Education offers.

Currently, the Hope Scholarship is limited to the state share of a student’s education dollars. Eliminating the Department of Education and block granting the money back to the states would allow 100 percent of the funding to follow the student wherever and however they receive an education. That means more options and more opportunities for students and their families to seek out a great education.

Though it’s widely known that the educational status quo is broken, powerful interests are at work in Washington to protect this broken system. The teachers unions and left-wing dark money groups are mobilizing to protect one of the biggest tools they have to advance their divisive cultural agenda. For decades, the Left has worked to achieve through the administrative state that which they can’t achieve at the ballot box. As the above mentioned Title IX rewrite shows, the survival of the Department of Education is inextricably linked with progressives’ power over young minds. They know that, and that’s why they’re fighting so hard to protect the current educational establishment.

But that just means we have to fight harder.

The mandate in November was given to us, in large part, by millions of parents concerned about the education of their children. It’s time for our unified Republican government to codify President Trump’s dismantling of the Department of Education.

Congressman Riley Moore is a Republican serving the Second District of West Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is a member of the House Appropriations Committee. Follow @RepRileyMoore.