Dive Brief:

• The same day the United States Senate narrowly approved Betsy DeVos’ nomination as U.S. secretary of education, Republicans in the House of Representatives introduced a bill to eliminate the department.
• The (Utah) Daily Herald reports Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a co-sponsor of the bill, said the cookie cutter approach to education has failed and that eliminating the federal department would facilitate greater innovation at the state level from people who are more invested in students’ lives than Washington bureaucrats.
• The short bill states little more than a plan to terminate the Department of Education on Dec. 31, 2018.

Dive Insight:

The Department of Education became a federal cabinet level department at the end of the Carter administration, and Carter’s immediate successor, Ronald Reagan, called for getting rid of it but never succeeded. The department took an increasingly strong role in national education policy throughout the George W. Bush and Obama years, but the Every Student Succeeds Act has already effectively scaled back that power.

Even though Republicans do control both houses of Congress and the presidency, it would be a major battle to actually eliminate the department. The DeVos nomination was widely contested by constituents across the political spectrum, so much so that two Republican senators voted against her confirmation. Many more Republicans would be taken to task by their constituents should abolishing the department be put up for a vote.