Education is one of America’s most important issues,
and it has been a major focus of the 106th Congress. One of
our principal goals has been expanding the role of parents, teachers,
and local leaders in deciding how education dollars are spent.
Students in different communities have different
education needs. We believe parents, teachers and local leaders have a
better understanding of the unique needs of their students than
government officials in Washington do. And we believe that if parents
and local educators are given greater control over the way in which
federal education dollars are spent, those dollars will be used more
effectively to address students’ needs.
Presently, most of those decisions are not made by
parents or teachers. Many aren’t even made at the state level by
governors or state boards of education. In most cases they’re made by
somebody 500 miles away at the U.S. Department of Education – somebody
who has probably never even been to your community, much less raised a
child there.
The typical American school district receives only a
small percentage (less than 10 percent) of its funding from the federal
government. You’d think the percentage would be higher, given that the
government operates a whopping 760 different education programs. But of
the dollars the federal government does spend on education, an alarming
percentage never even reach the classroom. They’re chewed up in
Washington bureaucracy and red tape long before they ever
arrive.
According to a recent Heritage Foundation analysis,
Ohio taxpayers send about $330 million a year to Washington for federal
education programs under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
(ESEA). But of that $330 million, about $26 million never reaches the
classroom.
This isn’t hard to believe when you consider that
the U.S. Department of Education hasn’t even been able to pass its last
two financial audits. For the past two fiscal years (1998 and 1999),
independent auditors have been unable to give the department a clean
financial bill of health due to the agency’s extensive internal control
problems.
A House Budget subcommittee recently held a hearing
on the Education Department’s financial management problems. They found
that independent auditors have made 139 recommendations in the past five
years to help the Department crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse, but
only 28 have been adopted. They even learned of a recently-exposed
scheme in which Education Department personnel and a private contractor
plotted to steal more than $1 million from the Department by making
false overtime claims and equipment orders.
This isn’t to suggest the typical Education
Department employee is anything but a hardworking, well-intentioned
public servant. But the fact that the Department can’t even pass a
routine financial audit does raise an important question: if we can’t
count on the Department to manage its internal finances properly, how
can we be willing to let it make decisions that will impact the
education of our kids?
The House Education and the Workforce Committee is
completing work on a bill that will ensure at least 95 percent of ESEA
funding reaches students and will allow local school districts and
states to customize programs to meet their students’ unique needs. We’re
taking a positive step toward greater parental involvement and local
control. Because when it comes to educating our kids, parents and
teachers should be first in charge.
