The dissolution of the federal Department of Education (DOE) is in the cards over the next four years under the newly-elected administration. Even if it remains a long-shot that the department becomes fully extinct in the near-term, it’s worth considering the downstream effects of such a development. There’s lots of talk about the national implications. But the national discourse often feels too disconnected from what would tangibly happen in local communities and to individual students and schools. 

So, let’s assume President Trump finds a way to eliminate the DOE. What happens in Indiana as a result? Better yet, what happens to your neighborhood public school?

A Quick Primer on What the DOE Does

I know I promised to focus on Indiana but allow me a moment to define the DOE’s core responsibilities. The following is a snapshot of what they do:

• Disburse Title I funds to K-12 schools that predominantly serve low-income students
• Collect and distribute data on schools
• Oversee accrediting agencies related to higher education
• Protect students from racial- and sex-based discrimination (for example, through Title IX)
• Manage student financial aid (to give you a sense of scale, in fiscal year 2023 the DOE gave out around $114 million to over 9.7 million college students)

In my eyes, the DOE’s role boils down to two major things. 1) Distributing funding to both schools and students. 2) Acting as an accountability check to ensure schools meet certain legal obligations to their students. 

While overly simplistic, I think it’s useful to thus frame a consideration about the downstream impact of the DOE being eliminated around two questions that build from how I characterized the DOE’s role. 1) Could funding flow directly to the states and would current funding levels continue? 2) In the absence of the DOE’s accountability, would students remain protected by their states?

Funding Flows and Levels

Let’s take one major example: Title I funding that is earmarked to support schools serving high populations of low-income students. Were the DOE dissolved, this funding mechanism could technically continue, likely in the form of block grants to individual states. There’s no reason funding levels would automatically dip in the absence of the DOE. But let’s be honest, I doubt the new administration is eager to retain the DOE’s budget and simply shuffle the funding mechanism to deliver similar amounts directly to each state.

So what’s the impact if Title I gets cut or even disappears? Take the most recent available public data (Fiscal Year 2022-23) from the Indiana Department of Education’s website on Title I funding distribution by district across the state. Indianapolis Public Schools received over $16 million in Title I funds. In total, districts across the state received over $252 million. Using the census poverty count listed in that report of 163,204 students, you’re looking at over $1,500 per low-income student distributed to schools across our state. Possibly gone or at the very least disrupted. Moreover, those dollars don’t get spent purely on low-income students. They often support initiatives or resources that benefit an entire school or district.

So even if you yourself are not the parent of a low-income student, the ramifications are heavy. After all, just look at a district like Hamilton Southeastern Schools or Carmel Clay Schools (hardly districts known for high populations of low-income students). They received about $515,000 and $361,000 in Title I funding for 2022-23, respectively. 

Practically every school in Indiana will suffer as a result. It’s not fair to assume that “No DOE” equals “No Title I.” But it would be naïve to assume “No DOE” equals “Continued Title I at equal levels.”

Is a state like Indiana prepared to fill the gap left in the absence of a program like Title I? Not a chance.

Accountability and Student Protections 

Now for an example related to student protections. The DOE has an Office of Civil Rights. That office is tasked with enforcing federal laws that protect students from discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, disability, or national origins. Dissolving the DOE doesn’t automatically eliminate this office. It would likely instead be housed under the Department of Justice.

But the problem is that, currently, the DOE does a lot of legwork holding states and schools accountable. Were this office moved and/or reconstituted, suddenly individual families would need resources to pursue litigation on their own for having experienced discrimination. Essentially, a key ally to families disappears and they’re left fighting their own battles. 

Then consider the treatment of women and girls in schools. We have Title IX for some very good reasons. Jettisoning the DOE doesn’t jettison Title IX. But I’m under no illusion it remains enforced in the absence of the DOE. Indiana enrolled just over 1 million students in K-12 in 2023. Roughly half are female. They would not suddenly be safer, more protected, or more likely to succeed in school in the absence of Title IX enforcement.

Or take the Individuals With Disabilities Act (IDEA), meant to protect students with disabilities and ensure they receive a quality education. In the absence of accountability, do we really trust states to provide a quality education to students with disabilities? They barely do so in the presence of accountability. 

Public schools in Indiana enrolled around 188,000 students with disabilities during the 2022-23 school year (or around 18.2% of the total student population). In fact, we’re in the top ten nationally among states for this population of students. Do we really think schools left entirely to their own devices regarding how they treat these students (and spend IDEA funds on their behalf) will somehow do better? 

I think there’s a direct correlation between how well a school serves its special-needs population and how well it serves its general student population. So if your kid isn’t in that 18.2% of statewide students, it doesn’t mean they’ll be unaffected. Declining standards for that 18.2% almost certainly mean a decline in educational standards overall.

Now, on all of these accountability pieces, perhaps you think they could simply be the job of each state’s individual DOE. To which I would say, 1) Most state DOEs aren’t set up to do it, and 2) Leaving things like student rights entirely up to states hasn’t historically gone so well. 

The World Ahead of Us

Perhaps you think I mean all this as a staunch defense of the DOE. By no means is the DOE a perfect entity. We live in a country that has never really been interested in educating all of our students well. Clearly, the 50+ years since the federal DOE’s founding have not proved it to be some magical bulwark against discrimination that also ensures every last dollar distributed to schools is spent wisely and improves academic outcomes for kids. If it did, our landscape would look much different today.

But it’s also clear to me that we’re not facing a case of useful reform by those floating the elimination of the DOE. We’re facing abolition with no meaningful alternative. And the consequences in every state, but certainly in Indiana, would be dire.