The Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education building is pictured on November 25, 2024. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
Republican lawmakers in Ohio plan this week to formally declare their support for the Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education.
Resolutions are planned in both chambers of the General Assembly calling on Congress to disband the federal department, following President Donald Trump’s example he promised to do it from the beginning of the second term.
The Ohio resolution states that education “is not a federally delegated authority and has historically been administered by states and local communities accountable to families.” It goes on to say that academic achievement has “stalled or declined” under federal involvement.
“Decades of increasing federal spending and regulation have not improved student outcomes, but they have placed burdens on states and their schools,” the draft resolution reads.
State Rep. David Thomas, R-Jefferson, said the measure would come as part of a national movement he believes is needed to facilitate federal leaders get started.
“I think the federal government and our federal partners need the state’s support to be able to push this concept,” Thomas said. “So I see the impact as basically confirming that Ohio agrees that this should be done.”
The resolution’s language is nearly identical to model language developed by the America First Policy Institute, a national right-wing nonprofit. The group’s Ohio branch deputy director is Emily Moreno, daughter of Republican U.S. Senator Bernie Moreno.
The institute called the federal education agency a “failed experiment” in the background attached to the model language.
“(The department) did not promote student achievement, improve the education of disadvantaged students, or help expand educational opportunities,” the group said.
The department “used federal funds to force states to follow controversial social policies that should have been reserved for local policymakers,” the institute added.
The resolution states that Ohio will create a task force to create and publish a “comprehensive plan to assume full responsibility for education programs” currently under the purview of the U.S. Department of Education.
This comprehensive plan is expected to include any statutory changes required to “assume administrative control of federal education programs” and identify federal education mandates that Ohio would “refuse to administer.”
One clause in the model language that state lawmakers did not include in the bill promised to produce a state report using metrics from the plan to “measure student achievement, fiscal efficiency and regulatory burden.” Using model language, the report “would allow the public to compare performance under new state education leadership with the previous period of federal control of education.”
Through conversations with members of public schools and some teachers, Thomas said there was “broad public support” for the concept of providing “more local” education funding.
“When I ask (schools) how we can help reduce costs, every school brings up all the regulations and mandates and stuff,” Thomas said. “To me, this is another good example of something I was hoping for, which was more flexibility to remove a lot of these types of (federal requirements).”
State leaders have already shown support for eliminating the federal department, including: Ohio Governor Mike DeWine attends the event where Trump signed an executive order to begin eliminating the department.
In a world without the U.S. Department of Education, Thomas sees the state moving toward a block-grant process with no intermediaries. The federal money, which makes up about 10% of Ohio’s education funding, will still come, but the state will have more control over what to do with it, he said.
“I’m sure a lot of people think that getting rid of the Department of Education means getting rid of all the money,” Thomas said. “This is not what the administration claimed, this is not what this resolution supports.”
Teachers’ unions in Ohio and across the country have strongly opposed the effort, worried about losing federal protections and other imperative services as a result of the move.
“(The department’s) dissolution threatens to reduce or destabilize Title I and support for special education, weakens civil rights protections, and shifts costs to local communities through higher fees or painful cuts in services,” Jeff Wensing, president of the Ohio Education Association, said in a statement.
The union leader said the consequences of eliminating the agency would be “immediate and profound,” with less accountability for public funds and rising inequality.
“Teachers, parents and families know that our students need more opportunities, not fewer, to succeed,” Wensing said. “We must strengthen our public schools, which serve 90% of students – and 95% of students with disabilities.”
Thomas doesn’t see eliminating the federal Department of Education having an impact on the state’s school funding formula, even with a change to the federal funding model.
“I don’t think it’s going to change dramatically in a world without a federal Department of Education,” Thomas said. “I think the political side is changing more dramatically.”
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