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“Effective on the date that is 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Department of Education is abolished.”

Those are the first words in Senator Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota) has introduced. Anyone who knows just how much damage the Education Department has done to America will be thrilled to read those words. But while Senator Rounds’ bill is well-intentioned, I fear it is unlikely to pass. Even if it were to pass, it would leave too much of what the Department of Education actually does untouched. Education reformers should take heart from this bill—and work for detailed and thorough reform that actually will dismantle the labyrinth of programs nesting within the Education Department.

Senator Rounds’ bill is marvelously bold—but it is bold in ways that have not achieved majority support in the past, much less the supermajority support needed to get 60 votes in the Senate to end filibustering debate. Although Abolish the Education Department! has been a popular conservative slogan, Congressional Republicans since 1980 appear to contain a large faction that is happier to reform the Education Department than to abolish it. Senator Rounds’ preferred solution of transforming a large number of Education Department formula grants into block grants to the states has been proposed for many years now, without achieving universal support among Congressional Republicans. President Trump’s new political coalition, moreover, appears to include a number of moderate voters, including former Democrats, who prefer reforming government to eliminating it. Education reformers may wish Senator Rounds’ new bill godspeed, but still expect that these obstacles will likely prevent its passage.

Nor does Senator Rounds’ fairly brief bill directly address the mountain of legislation that authorizes different components of Education Department spending. Full-Service Community Schools, for example, are at best a waste of taxpayer money—but they are authorized by . So too are . Even an extraordinarily specific expenditure such as has its own legislative authorization. Senator Rounds’ bill mostly does not address this heap of legislation—much less the significant popular support for these expenditures embodied in such legislation. Education reformers will not be able truly to eliminate the Education Department’s myriad programs unless they explicitly rescind or reform every part of their authorizing legislation.

Then too, much of what Senator Rounds’ bill does is simply to transfer large parts of the Education Department to other federal departments. Special Education goes to the Department of Health and Human Services. College grants and loans go to the Department of Treasury. So too does Title I aid, albeit transformed into a block grant to the states. Too large a portion of Senator Rounds’ bill amounts to a fat transplant, with every cell of the Education Department transferred unharmed to another federal department, and ready to continue operations.

Senator Rounds’ bill is a good start. But his seven-page bill should be a seventy-page bill, which rescinds or reforms every single piece of authorizing legislation for the Education Department, and which explicitly prohibits spending on the dozens or hundreds of Education Department programs that at best waste taxpayer money, and at worst promote race discrimination and gender ideology, or create miniature welfare states within our public schools. We have built up this monstrous regiment of education programs by decades of legislation, and we must take the time to ensure that we disassemble every piece of it.

Senator Rounds Bill also relocates several Education Department programs to other departments, and this good idea also needs to be extended. The Education Department spends money for Palau and Micronesia – this should go to the State Department. It spends money on Defense Department schools – this should go to the Defense Department. But although a lengthy catalog of Education Department programs should be relocated to other departments, education reformers should make a priority of reforming the four core expenditures of the Education Department—Title I grants to disadvantaged students, special education, federal college grants, and federal college loans—and work afterward to relocate these reformed programs to other departments.

Converting these four core expenditures into block grants just may not have majority political support at present. Until they do get that support, immediate reforms can make these programs operate far better:

• Consolidate the four Title I formula grants for disadvantaged students into one simple formula grant program.
• Reform the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) so that it no longer imposes unfunded and undefined spending mandates for special education on the states and school districts.
• Enact ironclad laws to prevent a future Education Department from copying the Biden administration and illegally “forgiving” student loans.
• Reform so that neither the Education Department nor the accrediting organization can use federal college grants and loans as a bludgeon to force radical political programs onto higher education institutions.
• Reform the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights so that it cannot bludgeon either K-12 or postsecondary education institutions into adopting race discrimination, gender ideology, or abrogations of due process and First Amendment rights.
• Institute objective and quantifiable measurements of administrative efficiency and Return on Investment for every Education Department program.

These reforms are more likely in the short run to secure majority political support than proposals to convert Education Department spending into block grants. Education reformers can secure greater practical reform if they work for these goals first. And, of course, they can work for more ambitious goals once these reforms have been secured.

Senator Rounds’ bill is a wonderful first draft of the needed reform of the Education Department. Education reformers should build upon it to provide a comprehensive, detailed, and practicable program to eliminate or reform, and not just relocate, as many Education Department programs as possible.