A Marshall Plan for Our Failed Education System

A radical proposal for the reconstruction of education to let a 350 million flowers bloom

“I've concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress genius because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women.”
― John Taylor Gatto

Few passages have stuck with as deep an impact as Postman’s account of the Lincoln-Douglas debates in the seminal ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death.’ In 1854 and 1858, Lincoln and Douglas had two series of debates in towns throughout Illinois. During that same time, less than 10% of people attended a high school, and an even smaller number attended college. But the literacy rate was 90% and small towns full of “uneducated” literates flocked to these complex and deeply substantive debates that sometimes lasted as long as 7 hours.

Fast forward to today: what percentage of college students or graduates would “swipe left” on a 7-minute video for going too long or having too slow a pace?

It should be clear that people can be thoughtful and knowledgeable without institutionalized education. It should be equally clear that people can be thoughtless and ignorant even after years of institutionalized education. The goal of good institutionalized education should be to produce a population of adults more thoughtful and better educated than the same population would be if they were set loose with resources for learning and an empowered sense of agency to learn on their own.

There are few left who will defend the accomplishments of American education. The Department of Education was established 45 years ago, but it is a struggle to point to any concrete proofs justifying this centralized bureaucracy for administering education. Aside from overseeing decades of consistently worsening K-12 education, the DOE also administers a college student loan system described even by its defenders as “in crisis.” College appears to be indoctrinating more, educating less, all with a price tag increasing at a rate that could run circles around the rate of inflation.

It’s hard to argue fundamental change isn’t necessary. But complex reform in any sphere is a daunting task in today’s political climate of sheer dysfunction. Radical poles vie for national power and demand of the masses in the middle, “you’re either with us or against us.”

The only way forward is a grand bargain that gives both poles some of what they want, demands mutual concessions, and moves us far away from the utterly derelict system we are propping up today. Institutionalized education today is a money pit actively harming society. Everyone, especially those who claim to value education, should want to change that.

Below is a proposal guaranteed to include some provisions that make you cheer, and others that make you bristle. This is necessary. A real solution won’t give anyone on warring sides of an issue everything they want, but it will give students what they need.

Abolish the Department of Education

We’re jumping right into it. Already half of you are cheering and half are bristling. The cheering half needs no persuasion here. So, to the bristling half, what does the Department of Education actually do that you are afraid to lose?

Here is a broad view of what the Department of Education does:

• provides funding to the states for primary and secondary school, including funding for: students with learning disabilities; gifted programs; programs for low-income students;

• Establishes national academic standards for K-12 schools to influence the primary academic standards set by states;

• Administers federal student loans for college education; and

• Collects educational data from the 50 states.

The cost is not small. The DOE employees nearly 5,000 bureaucrats and, funding given to the states for actual education aside, spends billions to administer its programs. As discussed below, everything the DOE does can be done without it, except for one thing: we will no longer have a centralized authority able to dictate educational standards.

Is this a downside? It’s hard to see how it could be. Again, the DOE has existed for 45 years. What data can anyone point to that shows this power to centrally dictate educational standards has translated to any improvement in educational outcomes?

And that central authority for administering funding gives the federal government a set of carrots and sticks to control states. For instance, the Biden Administration’s DOE implemented new rule making in 2022 that cuts free and reduced lunch funding for low-income students in schools that don’t allow trans athletes to compete in girl’s sports, use girl’s bathrooms and locker rooms, and more.

The incoming Trump Administration’s DOE could just as easily hold funding hostage to enforce its own culture war agenda.

Let States Establish Their Own Academic Standards and Compete

As an initial matter, it bears emphasis that states already have the primary role in developing their own academic standards. Through its system of carrots and sticks, the DOE simply places limitations on that role.

But even so, states like Oregon are still able to abolish reading, writing, and math standards in the name of equity. So the “guard rails” of national standards don’t appear to actually do much.

Instead, we should let states freely compete in defining their own curricula.

Current K-12 Funding Will Become Block Grants

The funding currently gatekept by the DOE will not go away if the DOE closes its doors. The laws that establish this funding exist independently of the DOE and, absent an administering body, will be given directly to the states as block grants.

This means states will continue to receive full funding for special education, gifted programs, low-income student support, etc.

The only thing that goes away is the federal government’s ability to wield that funding as a cudgel and threaten to withhold it based on ideological demands. Again, this cuts both ways. Democratic and Republican presidents alike currently wield this power.

On net, a national bureaucratic entity with the power to establish standards is a downside. We should eliminate this easy exploit that holds our children’s education hostage to national culture war skirmishes.

We Can Solve The Student Loan Crisis Too

What about administering federal student loans? In short, we won’t anymore.

All outstanding federal student loans will be forgiven. It is worth noting that taxpayers have already paid for these loans. The damage was done when they were disbursed. Most graduates chip away at interest on their debt and never fully repay it. The government never hoped to recoup a fraction of the taxpayer money it doled it. We need to cut our losses and stop the future bleeding.

To that end, the federal government should cease offering student loans to college students altogether. These loan programs have been a disaster. They have made higher education radically more expensive for no benefit, while at the same time turning college into a program of indentured servitude. Professors don’t get paid more. Student-to-faculty ratios haven’t improved. Instead, college administration has exploded, turning a university system that was once a world wonder into a modern bureaucratic nightmare that students and professors alike navigate with nothing short of sheer misery.

So how will students afford college?

End Subsidies to Private Colleges and Make Public Universities Tuition-Free

My plan also proposes that we abolish Pell Grants. In addition to funding public education, Pell Grants serve as massive subsidies private colleges with outrageous endowments as well as windfalls to predatory for-profit colleges. With the elimination of federally-backed student loans and Pell Grants, every private college will rise or fall on its merit.

Public universities, on the other hand, will be made tuition-free. This sound expensive, but the jaw-dropping fact is that eliminating Pell Grants and eliminating public university tuition on net saves taxpayer money.

Private universities can (and already do) administer their own aid programs to students, including need-based grants and merit-based scholarships. Private banks can offer student loans, but they will have to do so with an honest risk-assessment: will these loans actually be paid back? Doubtlessly, private schools will have to reduce administrative bloat to cut costs, and they will have to provide real results for students to be a worthwhile expense.

The administrative bloat in public universities will be cut, too. Students won’t receive unending government-backed student loans anymore, which were responsible for exploding costs. The federal funding given to states will come back down to earth. If those states want to preserve their bloated bureaucratic administrations, they will have to extract higher taxes directly from taxpayers, who will have something to say about it.

The student loan program hid these costs. Forgiving student loans wouldn’t cost taxpayers any money. The reason the proposal is so incendiary is that it reveals how much money has already been taken from taxpayers and given to universities.

Direct taxes are more tangible, and require more political capital to enact. States will be more reticent to enact a new tax to hire a new Vice-Dean of Student Culture than they were to jack up tuition, which just increased the amount of federally-backed loans each student took out to cover that rising tuition.

Embrace the Experiment

Our current system has unequivocally earned its failing grade. No sane person should want to preserve it. My proposal gives conservatives some of what they want: ending federally-backed student loans, abolishing the DOE and returning all curriculum-planning to the states; and it gives liberals and progressives some of what they want: continued funding for K-12 programs, tuition-free college, and student loan forgiveness.

It also emphasizes a diverse marketplace where 50 different Departments of Education will have more freedom and funding to improve education where it’s actually administered—in the trenches. The states with the best plans will distinguish themselves, and the less successful states can copy their homework.

The university system in particular will be set free. Students will no longer be indentured servants in training, and taxpayers will no longer be pinatas beaten to fund an ever-growing bureaucratic college administration. Tuition-free public colleges will set a standard and cost won’t be a barrier for attendance. Private colleges will innovate to compete and offer an education worth paying for.

No side will get everything it wants, but Americans might finally get what they need—an education system to be proud of. Let’s end the madness and let a 350 million flowers bloom.