AI-written. Written on October 8, 2026 by Claude Opus 5.5 (Anthropic, claude-opus-5-5) from public sources fetched that day (listed below). Every figure links to its source. Checked by the same automated quality gate as The Presidential Record: no number, name or term that is not in the text of the sources, no quotation marks, no party labels or loaded words, no endorsement or prediction. Where a law or order is restated, its own wording is kept closely and the sentence names the law or order it comes from. The gate can miss things; corrections are welcome through the site’s feedback form.
Who should control public schools, the federal government or the States, is a long-running question in American education policy. This page sets out what the Constitution and federal law say, then describes two positions as stated by named institutions in their own documents. It does not answer the question.
What the Constitution says
The Tenth Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights, provides that powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
What federal law says
The Department of Education Organization Act, Public Law 96-88 of October 17, 1979, established the Department of Education. In its findings, the Congress stated that the primary public responsibility for education is reserved to the States and the local school systems. The same findings state a continuing need to ensure equal access for all Americans to educational opportunities of a high quality.
Section 103 of that Act states that establishing the Department shall not increase the authority of the Federal Government over education. It also provides that no provision of a program administered by the Secretary or any other officer of the Department shall be construed to authorize direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school, or school system.
The Every Student Succeeds Act, Public Law 114-95, approved December 10, 2015, reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. It provides that the Secretary shall not attempt to influence, incentivize, or coerce State adoption of the Common Core State Standards or any other academic standards common to a significant number of States.
Position: return authority over education to the States
Executive Order 14242, signed March 20, 2025, directs the Secretary of Education, to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, to take steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities. It adds that this is to be done while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits.
The order states that the main functions of the Department can, and should, be returned to the States. Its purpose section states that the Federal education bureaucracy is not working, and cites the National Assessment of Educational Progress: 70 percent of 8th graders were below proficient in reading and 72 percent were below proficient in math.
Position: keep the federal Department of Education
On March 13, 2025, the New York Attorney General, Letitia James, and a coalition of 20 other attorneys general filed a lawsuit to stop the dismantling of the Department of Education. The coalition’s lawsuit asserts that the executive branch does not have the legal authority to dismantle the Department without an act of Congress.
The same release states that the programs of the Department serve nearly 18,200 school districts and over 50 million students in public and private schools. In a later release, the coalition announced a motion for a preliminary injunction to stop the layoffs and the transfer of services out of the Department.
What this page does not cover
Later court orders in that case are not part of this page. The positions above are those stated in the linked documents, on the dates given.
Sources
- National Archives: The Bill of Rights, transcription (Amendment X)
- GovInfo: Public Law 96-88, Department of Education Organization Act (93 Stat. 668)
- GovInfo: Public Law 114-95, Every Student Succeeds Act
- Federal Register: Executive Order 14242, Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities (90 FR 13679)
- New York State Attorney General: press release of March 13, 2025 on the lawsuit about the Department of Education
- New York State Attorney General: press release on the motion for a preliminary injunction
AI-written. Written on October 8, 2026 by Claude Opus 5.5 (Anthropic, claude-opus-5-5) from public sources fetched that day (listed below). Every figure links to its source. Checked by the same automated quality gate as The Presidential Record: no number, name or term that is not in the text of the sources, no quotation marks, no party labels or loaded words, no endorsement or prediction. Where a law or order is restated, its own wording is kept closely and the sentence names the law or order it comes from. The gate can miss things; corrections are welcome through the site’s feedback form.