The Crucial investment We May Not Make

A response to the Project 2025 Heritage Blueprint for the Department of Education

An indicator of a society’s future is revealed by the height at which the current generation sets the bar for providing high quality and broad access to top-notch education. For future Americans to compete productively in a technologically complex world, and drive the solutions required by the grave threats we collectively face, it is hard to deny that arming the next generation with superlative skills and capabilities must be an uppermost priority.

Further, there is demonstrative evidence that investments in education yield superb returns. Arguably, the post–World War II G.I. Bill that provided educational benefits to millions of veterans has exhibited one of the greatest investment returns of any government program in our country’s history, leading to decades of prosperity for subsequent generations. The consensus among economics is that not only does a more educated population produce higher GDP largely through greater innovation, but more broad based access to education lowers future safety net costs.

Considering our level of investment over the past 20 years, the U.S. education system performance has been nothing short of abysmal. We rank 13^th in the world on the overall education index behind a host of our peers. We must do better, no ifs, ands or buts.

The Heritage’s Project, a comprehensive conservative blueprint fashioned for Donald Trump’s triumphant White House return, is a vast compendium with contributions from over 300 experts, oversight from a 54 member advisory board and support from over 100 conservative organizations. In account of the challenges described above, I was eager to review the Project 2025 recommendation for the DOE. Given that our nation’s public education system is based on local and state control, I was expecting a frank assessment of DOE’s performance along with a delineation of clear goals buttressed by a recommended model for effective federal participation.

Given our framework of local control of education, my sense is that DOE’s mission should center on unleashing the innovative power of state and local programs by concentrating on three main objectives: ambitious but realistic target setting, funding and supporting local and state innovation and research, and promulgating best practices across the states. Given a near crisis in access, ensuring educational equity would be an additional important objective. Fortunately, our federal model is well suited to grease the gears of local innovative experiments by a DOE that supports and coordinates best practices across “a thousand points of light” all over the country.

This is not what the Heritage report recommends.

The chapter related to the DOE starts with the very bold and clear statement that “Federal education policy should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated.” 

The almost 50 page chapter then focuses on three priorities: a) decommissioning,  decentralizing, and shuttering; b) stipulating firm local control of all allocated government dollars (federal or state) characterized by “school choice” – the ability of parents to “carry” their child’s allocated investment dollars to any school of their choice; and c) scrubbing the curriculum of all of the “woke stuff” (especially in the sex education and race history arenas).

Nowhere in the chapter is an delineation of the herculean challenge, nor an assessment of educational priorities, nor a Federal/State framework for coordination and implementation.

Nowhere in the report is the need for a renewed focus in the area of critical thinking and civics discussed. Of course, in recent decades, the high priority accorded to STEM education, vocational training and skill development, and preparation for individual economic success are all well-warranted. But in addition, our educational framework must foster a broad range of skills such as conducting discriminating analysis of multifaceted issues, and constructing logical and persuasive arguments based on empirical data. These vital additional areas of pedagogy, required to renew and sustain a democracy, have been largely crowded out in recent generations. We wonder why GenY and Z have scant abilities to evaluate the reliability of mountains of the “evidence” they encounter daily on the internet.

Nowhere in the report is the problem of access to education addressed.  Data shows that the annual investment for a student from a wealthy family is up to 5 times that of the median student, and up to 10 times that of the urban public school student. Further, this differential compounds each year over the course of K-12. How can we possibly pretend that our resulting meritocratic system will be able to drive the necessary innovation and economic productivity? This intolerably skewed access is a driving factor of stagnating social mobility at home -- the general concept of meritocracy requires a level play field. In any society, meritocracy or not, if one child receives a foundational education investment that is hundreds of times greater than another, the resulting achievement gaps are hardly surprising.

Nowhere in the report is a discussion of how to best leverage the unique 50-state laboratory model offered by our federalist system. The huge potential of unleashing local, on the ground talent to develop and cascade an abundance of innovative experiments all over the country is completely glossed over.

Concrete methods for tackling all of these priorities are abundant in the literature. Inarguably, there are multiple and often conflicting goals within any proposed or adopted hierarchy of educational needs; we need to build a broad consensus around educational objectives, encompassing both multidisciplinary expert (i.e. pedagogic) and parental points of view. However, the complexity of addressing these lies less in identifying and engaging the required expertise, and more with our lack of meaningful political determination to demand action.

The development of the collective human talent of our next generation need be a top priority. We need to reorient our thinking: of course we must pay attention to the educational capacities or performance at our own kids’ schools; but we also must pay heed

at a more aggregate community and societal level. In a classical economic sense, the development of our collective human capital is a public good, meaning returns on its investment not only accrue to the individual but spill over to society as a whole. Like all public goods, left alone, this economic dynamic results in structural underinvestment. Despite hundreds of policy experts involved in the creating the 800 page opus, the Heritage Project 2025 report fails to address any of these matters (and yet it still took 50 pages to recommend eliminating the department).

Surely, our collective human capital represents our most cherished and endurable asset. What happened to that great call to action: a mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Seth David Radwell is the author of American Schism: How the Two Enlightenments Hold the Secret to Healing our Nation, the 2022 International Book Award Winner. He is a frequent contributor to the Fulcrum.

I was quite thrilled that American Schism was included in Kevin Cook's list of most important books to heal our divides (what he wrote is copied below). Kevin has been a pioneer for many years in working to bridge our divisions. So if you have been waiting for an excuse to get your copy of American Schism, click on the link below.

PS: If the price of American Schism is a hurdle, please email me and I will gladly send you a copy. All proceeds from sales directly support nonpartisan election reform efforts - a key element of healing the American Schism.