House Republicans will soon vote on a measure to end the U.S. Department of Education — a proposal supported by Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz.
Kentucky GOP Rep. Thomas Massie, who has previously argued for abolishing the department, pinned an amendment to carry out his plan onto an existing education bill now before the House.
Massie’s measure says, in part, “It is the sense of Congress that the Department of Education should be terminated.” If enacted, the department would wither away on Dec. 31.
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“This week, for the first time since [President] Jimmy Carter signed a bill nationalizing education, Congress will vote on whether the Dept of Education should have ANY authority to determine how or what your children learn,” Massie tweeted Wednesday night.
He also thanked the co-sponsors of his amendment, which include Gaetz and Republican Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Keith Self of Texas.
The amendment is attached to a parental rights in education measure introduced by GOP Rep. Julia Letlow of Louisiana.
With her bill, Congress would force school districts to post curriculum information online, provide parents with a list of books and reading materials available in the school library, allow parents to address school boards on issues, publicly disclose their budgets, and obtain parents’ consent before any medical exam takes place at school, including mental health or substance use disorder screenings.
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“As a mom of two and a former educator, I believe for a child to succeed, they need families and schools to work together as partners throughout the learning process,” Letlow said in a statement.
For his part, Gaetz believes the Education Department is irretrievably broken and must go.
“Call me old fashioned, but I’m actually for ending the Federal Government’s role in education—not enhancing it with new congress- vested ‘rights,'” he tweeted last October when some of his own party championed an overhaul of the department as part of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s “Commitment to America” plan.
“Abolish the Federal Department of Education. That should be our #CommitmentToAmerica. Alas, instead we meme lame ‘commitments.'”
Carter created the Education Department as a stand-alone agency in 1979. Its doors actually opened in May 1980.
A year later, then-Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan campaigned on abolishing it. But the department has survived number GOp threats to dissolve over the last 43 years.
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