PHOENIX — Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne is signaling he has no objection to potentially dissolving the U.S. Department of Education, arguing the agency is "useless" and "hopelessly ineffective."
President-elect Donald Trump has suggested dismantling the education department, claiming the agency had been infiltrated by "radicals" and "zealots."
The federal agency distributes billions of dollars to colleges and schools each year, as well as monitors the enforcement of civil rights laws for students. During his presidential campaign, Trump suggested shifting the agency's functions over to the states, according to the Associated Press.
In a statement released Wednesday, Arizona's top education official claimed the state would not lose federal funding if the education department was abolished since Congress appropriates funds.
“I have seen comments saying that the federal department is needed because national test scores in reading, writing and math have gone down over the past 40 years," Horne said. "That just proves the USDoE is useless since those declines happened under its watch. The money used to operate this bureaucracy should go to local schools instead.”
According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the average scores in reading and mathematics for 9-year-olds in 2022 were "higher than the earliest assessments in the 1970s, but lower compared to the previous assessments in 2020."
The NAEP average score in reading for 13-year-olds was four points lower compared to 2020 and "not statistically significantly different" compared to the early 1970s.
Horne, a Republican elected to office in 2022, emphasized that the U.S. agency is not needed to filter education funds down to local schools.
