For years I've been hearing that the federal government is cutting education spending. In the last four years I've heard it shouted from the mountaintops of social media that Trump was going to destroy public education as we know it. His decision to position Betsy DeVos in the role of Secretary of Education came with great weeping and gnashing of teeth. The social media couch prophets foretold the end of decent education in America, and the national media largely threw sound bites of her own words back into her face as soon as there was audio to capture her verbiage.Most recently, with the insurrection and uprising of anarchists in the land of the marginally free, and the home of the internet brave, talk of defunding police has brought up comparisons in the twitter-sphere with the education system. So, once again, I took to the internet to do some research. I wanted to know, first, if the federal government was actually decreasing funding to education. Second, I wanted to know if Trump was responsible for this defunding. Third, if the federal budget hasn't changed, I wanted to know why people keep saying schools are being defunded. Finally, I wanted to know how DeVos factored into all this.
Note: When I research these things I try to avoid news articles because if there's anything in this country that has proven over the years it isn't trustworthy, it's the news. It doesn't matter what your source is, someone will say your source spun the facts to fit their narrative. So I'm going to try not to cite national media sites.
Is the Federal Government decreasing the education budget?
According to the official government education website, it would appear that, not only has the federal government NOT decreased spending on education, they've increased it steadily for decades. Now, it's entirely possible that the increases haven't kept up with inflation. An economic expert would have to look that up, because I really don't want to rabbit trail here. But the numbers have steadily increased for quite some time.
In 1980 the combined federal budget for education was around $28 billion. In 2019, that figure has jumped to almost $147 billion. (source: https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/history/edhistory.pdf)
Since I think in pictures, here's an idea of how spending has been going for quite some time. I only wish I had an image that included Trump's presidency.
Is Trump at fault?
Now that we know the federal budget has only increased during that time, it follows that it can't be Trump's fault that schools are defunded. In fact, We've had 7 different presidents since 1980. In that time, the only significant decreases were in 1983, 1994, 2012, and 2013. Significant increases happened in 2006 and 2009.
If schools did a better job teaching kids about how government works, and if politically driven media didn't reinforce false narrative, the majority of our citizens would know that federal spending is a joint decision between the president and both houses of congress. So let's take a look at the years that stuck out.
In 1983 Reagan was in the white house. Republicans led the senate, and Democrats led the House. According to the PDF it was the president's budget that significantly decreased, so it's pretty clear it was Reagan defunding public education. At that time the defense budget swelled significantly. This was also the year the National Commission on Excellence in Education report A Nation at Risk was published calling for Major reform. For more information on this check out this article: https://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2386/School-Based-Decisionmaking.html.
In 1994 Bill Clinton was president, and Democrats controlled both the Senate and the House. A renewed effort to push for more power at the local level happened during this year. The president's budget, as well as congress both cut federal spending this year.
In 2012 and 2013 Barack Obama was president. Democrats controlled the Senate, and Republicans led the House. A lot of the budget decisions were impacted by the recession. This time it was Congress that decided to cut their education spending, not the president. During this time, states were also being incentivized to adopt Common Core curriculum changes. States that switched received more federal money. Both the president and Congress cut education spending even deeper in 2013.
As for the rise in spending during 2006 and 2009. The initial report notes that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita resulted in major rebuilding of schools in the areas affected. 2009 marks the passage of the Recovery Act. During that time Congress technically cut their budget, but made up for it by funneling funds into the Recovery Act budget.
Where is the defunding occuring?
States Provide Nearly Half of Public School Funding States and local counties have been primarily responsible for education funding since. To give an idea of the breakdown, at least since 2016, here is a pie chart. (source: https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/3-6-19sfpf1_300.png) This means that what the president or congress does really doesn’t affect your state. This also means that if your local school is facing budget cuts you’re gonna have to contact your school board and your state leadership to enact change.
I find it interesting, and by that I mean slightly disturbing, that the majority of state education budgets go to colleges and universities, yet school debt is through the roof, and most college graduates have a difficult time finding jobs that will pay a living wage when they graduate.
I’m not going to go state by state, but it seems, according to my research, next time you hear someone complain about Trump defunding public education, you really should tell them to look up their state and local education budget and see if their state legislators, Governor, and local school board can justify why the defunding is occurring.
What about DeVos?
Before I end this, let’s look at the “Dolores Umbridge” of the Trump Administration. You would think, based on the reaction from advocates of public school that her decisions were going to irreparably destroy public education at its foundation. After 3 years in her position, she has done almost ZERO of what everyone was worried she would do largely because none of her ideas have passed congressional votes. The fact that everyone was practically foaming at the mouth in their panic over her installation seems a bit melodramatic.
That said, the primary object of their derision is her school choice initiatives that would steal tax dollars from schools that are already drastically underfunded.
I have to admit, my mind was blown when I actually looked up her concept. First, let me remind you that under DeVos control, federal spending on education has only increased. In fact, in 2017 there was a record breaking $115 billion spent on education by congress. There are many who would say that these increases have only gone to bolster charter and private schools. However, since her initiative hasn’t even been passed, she can’t actually be faulted for anything.
Additionally, based on my research above, even if the federal budget removed all support from education it would only impact state budgets by about 8%. It’s hard to make a case for school choice initiatives to “destroy” public education if only 8% of the budget is cut.
That’s not all. The actual school choice initiative would barely touch the money the federal government is spending. The school choice initiative would be capped at $10 billion. The 2019 budget was already $11 billion higher than it was in 2018 without the initiative. If her initiative had been passed in 2019, and every cent of the funding was utilized, there would still be $1 billion more flowing to the states than the previous year. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/634
In closing, I really wish people would do their research instead of blindly believing everything they hear. All my information was discovered with some quick research on Google. It’s not difficult, but you have to actually want to know what’s happening, rather than just wallowing in blind rage. I suppose if schools did a better job empowering the public to research effectively, it would be a lot harder for politicians to lie to us.
Fun Fact, in the president’s budget proposal (aka DeVos proposal) there is a request for $19 billion in block grants for the disadvantaged. If your congress doesn’t all for this, you can’t blame Trump or by default, Devos. https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget21/summary/21summary.pdf
