I taught in a high school classroom for right at 30 years, and I’m married to a retired middle school band director who also taught for 30 years. Between the two of us, we’ve taught thousands of students and have well over a half-century of experience, not to mention parenting two of our own kids through graduation as well. So I feel pretty safe in saying I’ve got at least a decently informed view of our education system as a whole.

There is currently a lot of talk regarding President Trump’s efforts to cut government spending and waste through the efforts of Elon Musk going through government agencies to find spending abuses and that waste. One of the main topics of discussion regards the potential elimination of the federal Department of Education.

I’ve been critical of a lot of what the DOE has done over the years. While there’s no doubt that some of the things that have originated from it have been positive, the hard fact of the matter is that in 1979 the Department of Education was created to serve three functions:

1. Administer and distribute federal funds for schools
2. Collect data on students and schools
3. Enforce laws regarding civil rights and equal access to education

Note that nowhere is it even implied that the federal government in any way would set educational standards, which is something that historically speaking had been left up to the states. It flies in the face of reason that a child living in Malibu, California, which has a median household income of nearly $200,000, requires the same education as a child living in Thomasville, where the median income is less than $50,000.

But somewhere along the line, the DOE eventually started making their funding contingent on schools teaching certain guidelines and standards mandated by them. As a result, things like standardized testing evolved into near monstrosities, dominating the teaching landscape inside the classrooms as teachers were regularly reminded that federal funding that was so important to schools was placed at risk through them.

It should come as no real shock that some areas of the nation, including Georgia, have struggled to keep pace with standardized test scores that were designed without those areas and their particular situations considered in their creation.

Essentially, standardized tests became the educational equivalent of a ‘one-size-fits-all’ pair of pants. I dare say if we took 100 people and put them in a room and asked them to try on such a pair of pants they wouldn’t fit very many of them at all. The same is true regarding those tests – regardless, federal funding was still attached to them.

It’s safe to say we all want to see blatant government waste addressed. With that said, it doesn’t fill me with a lot of confidence to see the wife of the head of the World Wrestling Federation named as the person in charge of education at the federal level. That sounds to me kind of like asking Bill Nye the Science Guy’s wife to be in charge of the NFL.

Regardless, let’s shoot straight here. The hard reality facing American education is not so much about our schools and our teachers as it is about the homes our students are coming from. When we hear that we spend more money per student than anybody else ($268 billion total in 2024 alone) and still rank 40th in the world in education, I can assure you it is not for lack of effort from the schools themselves.

So what is the real issue here?

As I’ve shared before, successful education takes a tripod to support it: schools that provide solid educational opportunities, engaged students, and parents and/or guardians who hold their children accountable for what they do in those classrooms. When those are in place failure is nearly impossible. Knowing that teachers are working harder than ever and our schools are providing more opportunities than ever as well, you would think that students being engaged would be easier than ever, too.

However, one leg of that previously mentioned tripod is not holding up its part of the weight: parents.

Now don’t get me wrong. We are very, very blessed to be where we are. I mean that. We still live in an area where families do hold their children accountable more times than not because we live in a place where family itself still matters. But we all know that is not the case across the nation. Too many children simply do not have an adult in their lives they respect enough to be able to truly hold them accountable for what they are or are not doing inside those schools. Overwhelmingly those are the very students that occupy 90%+ of teachers’ attention and energy.

I don’t know the answer, but I do know that far too many Americans only care about the blessed dollar bill. I can’t help but wonder if tax incentives for parents who are actively involved in their child’s education might not be worth trying. I don’t think it could hurt at least.

At the end of the day, the bottom line is I just don’t know how much the federal government can do to substantively impact education today. As with so many other things in this life, there are only so many things a dollar can buy – even 268 billion of them.