Jake Ellzey Points Out That Majority Of Colleagues In Hearing Went To Public School Before DoE Existed

Forbes Breaking News

During a House Appropriations Committee hearing last week, Rep. Jake Ellzey (R-TX) spoke about public education before the creation of the Department of Education in 1979.

Transcript

00:01Mr. Elsey.

00:02Thank you, Mr. Chairman, rank and member.

00:04Thank you, Madam Secretary, for being here.

00:06Let's go back in history a little bit.

00:08The creation of the Department of Education came about

00:12after the 1976 election in which Jimmy Carter got elected,

00:16and he promised the NEA, the nation's largest teachers' union,

00:22a Department of Education.

00:24Previously, those roles had been Department of Health

00:27and Human Services and a couple of others.

00:29So in order to get that done and get the endorsement to win 1980,

00:33we created the Department of Education.

00:37I'm pretty sure that my well-spoken, well-regarded colleagues

00:41on the other side of the aisle who have questioned you previously,

00:44with the exception of one, not one of them,

00:47got their public education under this Department of Education

00:53on the federal level.

00:54They were all educated by public education

00:57without having the Department of Education,

01:01Health and Human Services, Department of Justice.

01:05They all had different roles, and then we put it all into one.

01:08So we've spent billions and trillions of dollars, as you mentioned.

01:11Meanwhile, the state of Texas, I checked with my friend in the legislature,

01:14the state of Texas, which is perfectly capable of taking care of kids in the valley,

01:19in west Texas, in the panhandle in north Texas, down on the coast,

01:23all of which have different demographics and different needs.

01:26We're going to spend $100 billion in the state of Texas over the next two years,

01:31providing for our own public education according to our standards,

01:35because our local school districts know how to educate their kids.

01:40So if this is a question of mental health,

01:42well, that belongs at the Department of Health and Human Services.

01:45If it's about civil rights, that belongs at the Department of Justice.

01:50Ten percent of the funding that goes to public education in this country

01:53is sent from the states back here.

01:55Washington employs a whole bunch of people, has some strings attached,

01:59and then goes back down.

02:01So this existed prior to 1980.

02:03All of my colleagues on the right, except maybe Steny Hoyer,

02:06because he's pretty young, were educated without the Department of Education.

02:11So being a Navy pilot, I tend to watch a few movies.

02:15One of my favorites is Office Space.

02:18So let me ask you, what do you think, as the Secretary of Education,

02:23what would you say you do here?

02:25What would you say the Department of Education does,

02:28and is it accomplishing that mission?

02:30Madam Secretary.

02:31Well, thank you very much.

02:33You've made my case quite a bit for me already.

02:37But what I found in talking with so many people when I took on this position

02:42was the misunderstanding of what the Department of Education doesn't do.

02:47It does not set curriculum.

02:50It doesn't hire teachers.

02:51It doesn't specify books.

02:53It doesn't do all of those things.

02:55It is actually a pass-through mechanism for funding that is appropriated by Congress.

03:01And whether the channels of that funding are through HHS,

03:05or whether they're funneled through the DOJ,

03:08or whether they're funneled through Treasury, or SBA, or other departments,

03:15the work is going to continue to get done.

03:17So what I've been focusing on at the Secretary of Education is really understanding where these grants are,

03:23where these programs are.

03:24How do we make sure that they aren't wasteful?

03:27How do we reevaluate the contracts?

03:29As I talked before, let's do savings going in as we're recommending, you know, our budget cuts.

03:34Let's make sure that the programs that we're putting in place are best serving the students of those states.

03:39And that's the work that I'm focused on every day.

03:45I want to make it clear to my colleagues that I think there's a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government.

03:50Remember, 1980, Department of Education.

03:532001, Department of Homeland Security, which basically just added another level of bureaucracy and cost to the American taxpayer,

04:01with a questionable amount of return on that investment on safety because all those agencies underneath already existed,

04:08just like they do in the Department of Education.

04:10I would argue that I don't think that the folks of Connecticut want somebody like me telling them how to educate their kids

04:18any more than I want anybody from Connecticut telling me how to educate my kids in the state of Texas.

04:23This is better done at the state level.

04:25There's nothing about education in the Constitution, not one word.

04:29So my case is, it's not in the Constitution.

04:33Let's start with that.

04:34Let's reabsorb the functions of the Department of Education into other agencies just like it was before.

04:39And I think we're going to be just fine as my well-spoken, highly intelligent colleagues on the right side

04:45who were not educated under the guidelines of the Department of Education as it currently exists can attest.

04:51Thank you, and I yield back.

Category

Transcript

Recommended