Thread: Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie Launches Bill to Abolish Federal Education Department

by DR. SUSAN BERRY
7 Feb 2017
915 comments

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) is introducing legislation that would abolish the federal education department.
The bill, H.R.899, is only one sentence and states: “The Department of Education Shall Terminate on December 31, 2018.”

Thomas MassieVerified account
‏@RepThomasMassie
#HR899, my bill to abolish @usedgov, is pretty straightforward. #EndFedEd

9:33 AM - 7 Feb 2017

Massie introduces the measure as Betsy DeVos is confirmed as the next secretary of the U.S. Education Department. Grassroots parent activists had urged that the federal department be dismantled.

“Neither Congress nor the President, through his appointees, has the constitutional authority to dictate how and what our children must learn,” Massie said in a press release announcing the bill.

The congressman added:

Unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. should not be in charge of our children’s intellectual and moral development. States and local communities are best positioned to shape curricula that meet the needs of their students. Schools should be accountable. Parents have the right to choose the most appropriate educational opportunity for their children, including home school, public school, or private school.

“For years, I have advocated returning education policy to where it belongs — the state and local level,” said Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC), an original co-sponsor of the legislation. “D.C. bureaucrats cannot begin to understand the needs of schools and its students on an individual basis. It is time that we get the feds out of the classroom, and terminate the Department of Education.”

Massie’s office lists other original co-sponsors of the bill, including Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI), Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA), and Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID).

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...on-department/

by DR. SUSAN BERRY
13 Feb 2017

Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) is a co-sponsor of a recently introduced bill that would eliminate the federal education department.
Amash’s office said in a statement reported by Fox17:

Our Constitution reserves the power over education to the states, and Rep. Amash has consistently supported putting parents and teachers back in control. While relatively little federal money for public education comes from Washington, federal bureaucracy and mandates reduce the total amount of resources available to public schools and cannot properly account for the individualized needs of students.

The measure, H.R. 899, introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), is only one sentence long and states, “The Department of Education Shall Terminate on December 31, 2018.”

Thomas Massie ✔ @RepThomasMassie
Neither Congress nor the Pres, thru his appointees, has the const. auth. to dictate how/what our children must learn http://bit.ly/2kJFbv8
10:18 AM - 7 Feb 2017


“Unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. should not be in charge of our children’s intellectual and moral development,” Massie said. “States and local communities are best positioned to shape curricula that meet the needs of their students.”

Massie launched the bill on the same day Betsy DeVos – also from Michigan – was confirmed as U.S. Education Secretary. According to mlive.com, the timing of the bill was not intended as a response to DeVos’s confirmation, but to the greater issue of federal control of education.

In a Facebook post in November, Amash – a longtime defender of parental and local control of education – congratulated DeVos on her nomination, yet still expressed his hope for a return to local control of education.

Justin Amash
about 3 months ago
Congratulations to Betsy DeVos on her nomination as secretary of education. She is a friend, a resident of Michigan's Third District, and a longtime community leader. I can think of few people as prepared to meet the challenges ahead.
Betsy is intelligent, creative, experienced, and passionate about reforming education. I look forward to working with her to empower parents and local communities, advance school choice and competition, protect the right of homeschooling, and stop federal mandates and harmful initiatives like Race to the Top and Common Core.

“I look forward to working with her to empower parents and local communities, advance school choice and competition, protect the right of homeschooling, and stop federal mandates and harmful initiatives like Race to the Top and Common Core,” he said.

Amash voted against the massive new federal education law known as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), confirming what many education scholars have said about the law – that it “further entrenches the federal government in education.”

“I look forward to working with her to empower parents and local communities, advance school choice and competition, protect the right of homeschooling, and stop federal mandates and harmful initiatives like Race to the Top and Common Core,” he said.

Amash voted against the massive new federal education law known as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), confirming what many education scholars have said about the law – that it “further entrenches the federal government in education.”

Justin Amash ✔ @justinamash
Revival of #NoChildLeftBehind, #S1177, passes 359-64: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2015/roll665.xml …. It further entrenches the federal government in education.
4:45 PM - 2 Dec 2015
52 52 Retweets 28 28 likes

In 2014, Amash and a coalition of 42 conservative members of Congress introduced a measure that condemned the federal government’s overreach in local school districts through Common Core.

“I’m proud of the many parents, local school districts, and states that have resisted Common Core,” Amash said in a statement. “I want them to know that they have partners in Congress working to roll back this harmful policy.”

“The federal government should not impose Common Core standards and curriculum on our kids,” he added. “We have a strong tradition in this country of parental control of education, which fosters competition and diverse approaches to learning. That tradition is embodied in the Tenth Amendment, which is supposed to bar this kind of federal interference.”

Other co-sponsors of the measure to eliminate the federal education department are: Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA), and Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID).

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...on-department/

I totally support this. Never in my life thought I would, but I do and hope it passes quickly.

I do also Judy. Education should be more local, the federal government should not be involved.

I used to think we needed a national led program to avoid discrimination, make sure all the basics were covered, and to keep an eye on progress, to help weak areas of the country get issues resolved and catch up. But then something happened, an organization called the NEA became the lead, which is about teachers instead of students, and ever since, the ability of the federal government to make a positive difference has been flushed down the toilet. So it's an inevitable failure because of the NEA, in my opinion, and then you add in the differences in political views as they apply to education, and the result is just a big political bureaucratic swamp that wastes money while the students slip down.

Does that mean we can get rid of that stupid "free school lunch" program federal taxpayers underwrite? We need to cancel that at the same time. Make education the responsibility of the states including feeding their students.

Eliminating the DOE saves almost $70 billion a year.

Eliminating Free School Lunch saves another $13-$14 billion a year.

WOW, I'm liking this a lot.

Maybe the opponents of Betsy DeVos can be convinced to support this bill.

LOL!! Maybe so!! In their minds, that's one way to get rid of her, huh??

It's okay, I think the States today are completely capable of running their own public schools, paying for them, and feeding the students.

I don't really have a position on this, but I doubt very seriously the federal government is going to quit subsidizing the free and reduced student lunch programs. If getting rid of the Education Department means that will happen, I don't expect the bill to be successful. Representatives from states like Mississippi, New Mexico, Louisiana, Alabama, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Arkansas probably won't go for it.

Why do we have to feed the students? Their parents can pack their own lunch. Can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em.

Now we are providing breakfast, lunch and many schools are giving food to take home on weekends! This needs to stop. These parents can afford booze, cigarettes, nails, tattoos...feed your own kids!

E-verify public taxpayer funded schools and get the illegal aliens OUT of our schools, they are on every FREE program under the sun.

The National School Lunch Program is a program of the Department of Agriculture--not Education.