Damn, if you chop up, the core crapola continues to exist, just with different bosses. That’s no solution.
NYT —> “...an agency created by Congress to ensure all Americans have equal access to educational opportunity”
Yeah. As if Americans did not have that before the DOEd.
It was part of HEW. HEW, however did NOT get involved in regulating the primary schools and high schools, that was pretty well left to the states. Now DoE gives the states enough money to dictate terms on curricula and testing, etc.
As long as the states won’t say no to the money, no state will truly be free.
This is sort of like the opposite of when Nixon created the EPA; there were existing laws being enforced elsewhere in existing agencies - EPA put them all in one place. Things were probably better scattered and disjointed... less "policy-making" happens that way.