What to Do with the Department of Education?

Restoring Equity Through Federalism, Not Control

2028 Presidential Campaign of Martin A. Ginsburg, RN

February 11, 2026

I. Introduction: Equity Without Control—A Federal Education Policy Worthy of the Constitution

The Department of Education was not created to run schools. It was created to support them. Its mandate, even at its founding in 1979, was to collect data, disseminate research, and administer targeted grants—not to standardize learning outcomes or dictate curriculum.

Yet over time, centralization crept in—through funding conditions, regulatory mandates, and politically reactive interventions that replaced local discretion with federal compliance.

Today, the Department oversees more than $80 billion annually in discretionary funding. Yet academic performance, equity outcomes, and trust in public education have all declined in direct proportion to federal reach.

This campaign believes in educational equity—but not in Washington as the architect of American learning.

“The purpose of the federal government is not to standardize minds. It is to ensure that every state has the resources to educate—without being told how to indoctrinate.”

II. Original Purpose, Current Reality

Original Mandate:

·         Collect and publish educational statistics

·         Conduct research on education practices and effectiveness

·         Administer grants for specific populations: low-income students, students with disabilities, English-language learners

·         Protect civil rights in education settings

Contemporary Reality:

·         Oversees complex funding mechanisms tied to compliance frameworks, testing regimes, and data reporting

·         Influences curriculum indirectly through funding criteria, assessment requirements, and grant scoring

·         Expands its role during each perceived national crisis—from STEM preparedness to school shootings to pandemic recovery—without statutory overhaul

Result:A department with enormous leverage but limited clarity. It is both influential and distrusted—by the left, by the right, and increasingly by the educators it was created to support.

III. The Structural Problems

1.      Federal Leverage Without Local Context: Programs like Title I and IDEA are essential—but come with administrative burdens that small districts struggle to meet, reducing flexibility and diverting resources from classrooms to compliance.

2.      Mission Overlap with Other Agencies: Workforce readiness overlaps with the Department of Labor. Equity grants overlap with HHS. Higher education finance involves Treasury. But the coordination is piecemeal at best—and contradictory at worst.

3.      Politicized Leadership at the Top: The Secretary of Education is a PAS role often occupied by individuals whose main qualification is ideological alignment. Curricular “wars” are waged through guidance letters and funding threats—not through consensus or legislation.

4.      No Mechanism for Regional Innovation Scaling: When states develop successful models—early childhood integration, vocational education pipelines, dual enrollment initiatives—the Department lacks a system for sharing or replicating those innovations across jurisdictions.

IV. Structural Reforms to Realign Education to Federalism and Excellence

This campaign proposes a federal education model built on three pillars: equity of access, local control, and national accountability through transparency—not control.

A. Restore the Department to Its Original Research and Support Role

·         Fund equity grants

·         Conduct and publish longitudinal studies of student outcomes

·         Create a National Education Dashboard with real-time performance data disaggregated by district, income, and demographic

·         Provide open-source toolkits and technical support—not mandates

B. Reallocate Curricular Influence to States

·         Issue no guidance on curriculum content except as explicitly authorized by law

·         Prohibit conditioning of funds on specific curricular adoption, assessment formats, or textbook contracts

·         Support state consortia that voluntarily align for testing or programmatic innovation—but will not referee or finance them

C. Merge Redundant Federal Education Functions

·         Programs now run through HHS, Labor, and other agencies will be consolidated under a unified interagency Education Access and Opportunity Council to:

o    Align early childhood, K–12, and post-secondary funding

o    Ensure smooth transitions between programs across age and institutional lines

o    Prevent duplicative grant administration and performance reporting

D. Reduce Political Appointments, Increase Professional Stability

·         Convert sub-Cabinet appointees to career SES roles

·         Require that the Secretary of Education hold a minimum of 15 years of educational leadership experience in public schools, higher education, or nonprofit education administration

V. Addendum – Establishing a Nonpartisan National Education Standard

In a nation as diverse and decentralized as the United States, educational variation is inevitable—and desirable. But the absence of any nationally recognized standard of informational sufficiency creates both internal inequity and external uncertainty.

International employers, universities, diplomatic counterparts, and development partners increasingly ask the same question: “What does it mean to have a U.S. education?”

This campaign asserts that a common informational foundation—free from political indoctrination or cultural revisionism—is essential to:

·         Assure global partners of the intellectual capacity and knowledge base of U.S. graduates

·         Support mobility and opportunity for students across state lines

·         Offer an internationally credible credential of civic, scientific, and analytic literacy

A Constitutional Role for a National Educational FrameworkThe Department of Education will not dictate how students learn. But it will define what every child in America should have access to—if they are to participate fully in modern citizenship and global competitiveness.

This includes, at minimum:

·         Foundational literacy and composition

·         U.S. and world geography and history

·         Mathematics through calculus or quantitative reasoning

·         Scientific principles across biology, chemistry, physics, and environmental systems

·         Civics and constitutional literacy

·         Economic and digital systems fluency

·         Arts and cultural fluency, including music, visual art, and design thinking

This framework will not be enforced through mandates. It will be offered through a National Education Reference Standard, developed through:

·         Comparative study of top-performing international education systems

·         Analysis of non-ideological core curricula used by leading global economies

·         Consultation with governors, university systems, and civic employers

A National Equivalency Diploma for Global and Interstate Recognition

To support students and families seeking to validate their academic preparation beyond district or state lines, the Department of Education will develop a National Equivalency Diploma (NED).

This credential will:

·         Be voluntary, non-binding, and available free of charge

·         Certify that a student has mastered the informational core of the National Education Reference Standard

·         Be portable across states, recognized by federal programs, and acknowledged by global partners

·         Include adaptive accommodations for students with disabilities, multilingual learners, and non-traditional schooling paths

VI. Why This Matters

The quality of American education will never be raised by Washington. It will be raised by parents, teachers, communities, and states empowered to innovate.

But equity cannot depend on zip code alone. This is where the federal role is essential—not to prescribe, but to provide. Not to impose, but to invest.

“We can support every child’s right to learn—without telling every school how to teach.”

VII. Strategic Takeaways for the Campaign

The Department of Education cannot fix public education from a podium. But it can fund fairness, measure progress, and reward innovation.

• Educational excellence requires local authority. Educational equity requires national commitment.

• This campaign will deliver both—not through mandates, but through meaningful support.

·         The Department of Education cannot fix public education from a podium. But it can fund fairness, measure progress, and reward innovation.

·         Educational excellence requires local authority. Educational equity requires national commitment.

·         This campaign will deliver both—not through mandates, but through meaningful support.

“Learning is not federal. But fairness must be. And this campaign will prove that equity does not require control—and that excellence does not require standardization. It only requires trust, clarity, and the resources to deliver what every child deserves: a school that works.”