Why Federal Oversight of Education Remains Essential: Lessons from the Front Lines
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By Michael A. Smith, Ph.D. Candidate in History, Assistant Professor
As legislative proposals circulate to dismantle federal education programs and return funding exclusively to state control, I find myself compelled to speak from a perspective shaped by nearly four decades in higher education and a childhood spent in one of America's most educationally disadvantaged states. My experience—spanning ten degrees, twelve years teaching in Christian education, decades teaching graduate and undergraduate courses across multiple institutions and socioeconomic contexts, and research in both American history and educational systems—has taught me a fundamental truth: when it comes to educational equity and excellence, decentralization is not a panacea. It is, in fact, a dangerous regression to a class-based system we worked decades to overcome.
The GI Bill: How Federal Investment Built the Middle Class
Before we dismantle federal involvement in education, we must remember what federal investment created. When President Truman faced the challenge of millions of returning troops after World War II, he confronted a potential economic catastrophe. The GI Bill was not just veteran support—it was a revolutionary reimagining of who could access higher education in America.
Before the GI Bill, college was the exclusive domain of the wealthy. Universities were finishing schools for the privileged class, not engines of social mobility. But millions of "regular guys"—men who would never have dreamed of university education—came home, went to school, earned degrees, and formed the great American middle class that became the envy of the world. They did not just gain credentials; they gained critical thinking skills, professional networks, and most importantly, aspirations for their children. They wanted the same opportunities for the next generation.
This was not an accident of the free market. This was not state-level innovation. This was deliberate federal policy that democratized education and transformed American society. It proved that when you invest in education broadly rather than limiting it to those who can afford it, everyone benefits—the individuals, the economy, and the nation's competitive position.
Now we are being asked to dismantle the mechanisms that continue this legacy. Please make no mistake: destroying federal education programs returns us to the old system where the privileged class controls access to the primary tool of social mobility. And that is not a bug—for some, it is a feature.
The Historical Record Speaks Clearly
I entered eighth grade in 1972, eighteen years after the Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. My Southern state had dragged its feet for nearly two decades, employing every legal maneuver and political tactic to avoid integration. This was not an accident. This was policy. This was the deliberate use of state-level control to maintain a social order built on inequality, including educational disparities that preserved economic hierarchies.
Before we dismantle federal involvement in education, we must remember what federal investment created. When President Truman faced the challenge of millions of returning troops after World War II, he confronted a potential economic catastrophe. The GI Bill was not just veteran support—it was a revolutionary reimagining of who could access higher education in America.
Before the GI Bill, college was the exclusive domain of the wealthy. Universities were finishing schools for the privileged class, not engines of social mobility. But millions of "regular guys"—men who would never have dreamed of university education—came home, went to school, earned degrees, and formed the great American middle class that became the envy of the world. They did not just gain credentials; they gained critical thinking skills, professional networks, and most importantly, aspirations for their children. They wanted the same opportunities for the next generation.
This was not an accident of the free market. This was not state-level innovation. This was deliberate federal policy that democratized education and transformed American society. It proved that when you invest in education broadly rather than limiting it to those who can afford it, everyone benefits—the individuals, the economy, and the nation's competitive position.
Now we are being asked to dismantle the mechanisms that continue this legacy. Please make no mistake: destroying federal education programs returns us to the old system where the privileged class controls access to the primary tool of social mobility. And that is not a bug—for some, it is a feature.
The Historical Record Speaks Clearly
I entered eighth grade in 1972, eighteen years after the Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. My Southern state had dragged its feet for nearly two decades, employing every legal maneuver and political tactic to avoid integration. This was not an accident. This was policy. This was the deliberate use of state-level control to maintain a social order built on inequality, including educational disparities that preserved economic hierarchies.
When we discuss returning educational authority to the states, we must reckon with this history. Federal intervention in education did not emerge from bureaucratic overreach—it emerged from necessity. It appeared because, left to their own devices, states routinely failed their most vulnerable students. The GI Bill worked precisely because it was federal, universal, and not subject to state-level gatekeeping that would have excluded many veterans based on race, class, or geography.
The resistance to Brown was not simply about race, though racism was certainly its animating force. It was about power…the power to control what children learned, who had access to quality education, and ultimately, who would have the tools to challenge existing hierarchies. Access to education is access to economic mobility, and those who benefit from the current class structure have always understood this better than those fighting for broader access.
The "Slow Learner" States and the Reversal of Progress
My home state remains near the bottom of national education rankings. It continues to struggle with racism, misogyny, and patriarchal structures that many other parts of the country have at least begun to address. This is not coincidental, nor is it primarily a function of poverty, though economic challenges certainly compound the problem. It is, in significant measure, a function of political will—or rather, the strategic lack thereof.
States that benefit from keeping their populations "manageable,” less educated, less critically engaged, and less equipped to challenge authority have little incentive to improve educational outcomes when left solely to their own discretion. Education is power. An educated populace asks uncomfortable questions. They recognize manipulation. They demand accountability. They organize for better wages and working conditions. They vote based on analysis rather than tribal loyalty. Those who advocate local control apparently close their eyes to the incessant battles that go on with local school boards over religion, book bannings, and culture war issues, which make it difficult to find citizens willing to serve in such a chaotic and dysfunctional environment.
The sons and daughters of those GI Bill recipients expected quality public education for their children. They had seen what education could do. They had experienced social mobility. Federal standards and programs helped deliver on that promise—imperfectly, but meaningfully. Now we are told that those very programs are the problem, that states should be free to chart their own course without federal "interference."
But we know what that course looks like. We have seen it. We have lived it.
The resistance to Brown was not simply about race, though racism was certainly its animating force. It was about power…the power to control what children learned, who had access to quality education, and ultimately, who would have the tools to challenge existing hierarchies. Access to education is access to economic mobility, and those who benefit from the current class structure have always understood this better than those fighting for broader access.
The "Slow Learner" States and the Reversal of Progress
My home state remains near the bottom of national education rankings. It continues to struggle with racism, misogyny, and patriarchal structures that many other parts of the country have at least begun to address. This is not coincidental, nor is it primarily a function of poverty, though economic challenges certainly compound the problem. It is, in significant measure, a function of political will—or rather, the strategic lack thereof.
States that benefit from keeping their populations "manageable,” less educated, less critically engaged, and less equipped to challenge authority have little incentive to improve educational outcomes when left solely to their own discretion. Education is power. An educated populace asks uncomfortable questions. They recognize manipulation. They demand accountability. They organize for better wages and working conditions. They vote based on analysis rather than tribal loyalty. Those who advocate local control apparently close their eyes to the incessant battles that go on with local school boards over religion, book bannings, and culture war issues, which make it difficult to find citizens willing to serve in such a chaotic and dysfunctional environment.
The sons and daughters of those GI Bill recipients expected quality public education for their children. They had seen what education could do. They had experienced social mobility. Federal standards and programs helped deliver on that promise—imperfectly, but meaningfully. Now we are told that those very programs are the problem, that states should be free to chart their own course without federal "interference."
But we know what that course looks like. We have seen it. We have lived it.
Myth of Local Accountability
Proponents of state control often invoke the principle of local accountability, arguing that communities know best what their children need. This sounds reasonable until you examine what "local control" has historically meant in practice—and whom it has traditionally served.
In my years teaching history, I have had students from states where textbooks present the Civil War as primarily about "states' rights" rather than slavery, where evolution is treated as a controversial theory rather than established science, and where American history is sanitized to remove uncomfortable truths about genocide, slavery, and systemic oppression. This is not education—it is indoctrination designed to produce citizens who will not question the narratives that maintain existing power structures.
I teach courses in composition, rhetoric, and academic writing. The students who arrive from states with weaker educational systems face a steeper climb. They have been denied not just content knowledge, but the critical thinking skills necessary for genuine intellectual development. They have learned to memorize and recite rather than analyze and question. This is not their failing—it is a systemic one, the predictable result of educational systems designed more to produce compliant workers than thoughtful citizens capable of economic advancement.
The GI Bill veterans understood something crucial: education is the great equalizer, but only when it is actually equal. When states control standards and funding without federal oversight, education becomes a tool for maintaining class distinctions rather than overcoming them.
Proponents of state control often invoke the principle of local accountability, arguing that communities know best what their children need. This sounds reasonable until you examine what "local control" has historically meant in practice—and whom it has traditionally served.
In my years teaching history, I have had students from states where textbooks present the Civil War as primarily about "states' rights" rather than slavery, where evolution is treated as a controversial theory rather than established science, and where American history is sanitized to remove uncomfortable truths about genocide, slavery, and systemic oppression. This is not education—it is indoctrination designed to produce citizens who will not question the narratives that maintain existing power structures.
I teach courses in composition, rhetoric, and academic writing. The students who arrive from states with weaker educational systems face a steeper climb. They have been denied not just content knowledge, but the critical thinking skills necessary for genuine intellectual development. They have learned to memorize and recite rather than analyze and question. This is not their failing—it is a systemic one, the predictable result of educational systems designed more to produce compliant workers than thoughtful citizens capable of economic advancement.
The GI Bill veterans understood something crucial: education is the great equalizer, but only when it is actually equal. When states control standards and funding without federal oversight, education becomes a tool for maintaining class distinctions rather than overcoming them.
The Federal Role: Guarantor of Opportunity
The Department of Education, for all its imperfections, serves a crucial function: it ensures that children in Mississippi have access to at least some of the same opportunities as children in Massachusetts. It provides funding that poorer states could never generate independently. It enforces civil rights protections that many states would abandon without federal oversight. It establishes basic standards that prevent a complete race to the bottom.
Just as the GI Bill did not ask whether veterans "deserved" education or whether their home states valued higher learning, federal education programs recognize that educational opportunity is a right, not a privilege to be granted or withheld based on ZIP code or state politics.
Those pushing to eliminate federal education programs often come from states that have never needed them—states with strong tax bases, well-funded schools, and populations that value and invest in education. They forget, or choose to ignore, that their own students benefit from competing with peers who have had access to federally supported programs. They forget that American competitiveness—the very competitiveness built by those GI Bill-educated workers—depends on educational excellence across the nation, not just in privileged enclaves.
The Department of Education, for all its imperfections, serves a crucial function: it ensures that children in Mississippi have access to at least some of the same opportunities as children in Massachusetts. It provides funding that poorer states could never generate independently. It enforces civil rights protections that many states would abandon without federal oversight. It establishes basic standards that prevent a complete race to the bottom.
Just as the GI Bill did not ask whether veterans "deserved" education or whether their home states valued higher learning, federal education programs recognize that educational opportunity is a right, not a privilege to be granted or withheld based on ZIP code or state politics.
Those pushing to eliminate federal education programs often come from states that have never needed them—states with strong tax bases, well-funded schools, and populations that value and invest in education. They forget, or choose to ignore, that their own students benefit from competing with peers who have had access to federally supported programs. They forget that American competitiveness—the very competitiveness built by those GI Bill-educated workers—depends on educational excellence across the nation, not just in privileged enclaves.
What We Risk Losing: The Death of Meritocracy
In my dissertation research on Dr. Charles H. Townes, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who co-invented the laser, I have been struck by how his intellectual development depended on access to quality education in an era when such access was far from guaranteed, even for a white male in the early twentieth-century South. Townes succeeded despite limitations, not because of them. The GI Bill and subsequent federal education programs were designed to ensure that capability, not class background, determined educational access.
How many brilliant minds have we lost because state-level decisions prioritized other concerns over educational investment? How many potential innovators, entrepreneurs, scientists, and leaders never got the chance that federal programs might have provided? And how many more will we lose if we return to a system where educational opportunity depends primarily on family wealth and state priorities?
As I grade papers from students across the country, I see the legacy of both systems. I see students from well-funded districts who have been taught to write, research, and think critically—often the grandchildren of GI Bill recipients who valued education because it changed their lives. And I see students from underfunded systems who have been taught to survive standardized tests but lack the foundational skills for college-level work. The latter are no less capable—they have been less served. Without federal standards and funding, those gaps will only widen until higher education once again becomes what it was before 1944: the exclusive preserve of those born to privilege.
In my dissertation research on Dr. Charles H. Townes, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who co-invented the laser, I have been struck by how his intellectual development depended on access to quality education in an era when such access was far from guaranteed, even for a white male in the early twentieth-century South. Townes succeeded despite limitations, not because of them. The GI Bill and subsequent federal education programs were designed to ensure that capability, not class background, determined educational access.
How many brilliant minds have we lost because state-level decisions prioritized other concerns over educational investment? How many potential innovators, entrepreneurs, scientists, and leaders never got the chance that federal programs might have provided? And how many more will we lose if we return to a system where educational opportunity depends primarily on family wealth and state priorities?
As I grade papers from students across the country, I see the legacy of both systems. I see students from well-funded districts who have been taught to write, research, and think critically—often the grandchildren of GI Bill recipients who valued education because it changed their lives. And I see students from underfunded systems who have been taught to survive standardized tests but lack the foundational skills for college-level work. The latter are no less capable—they have been less served. Without federal standards and funding, those gaps will only widen until higher education once again becomes what it was before 1944: the exclusive preserve of those born to privilege.
The Contemporary Context: Class Warfare by Other Means
We must also recognize that the current push to dismantle federal education programs does not exist in a vacuum. It is part of a broader project to restructure American society along lines that privilege certain groups while limiting opportunities for others—essentially reversing the democratization of opportunity that the GI Bill began.
Having researched and written extensively on Christian nationalism and threats to democratic institutions, I recognize the patterns: the rhetoric of "freedom" deployed to justify policies that actually constrain freedom for the majority; the invocation of "parental rights" used to mask efforts to control curriculum and limit exposure to diverse perspectives; the claim of government overreach made by those seeking to impose their own ideological vision while dismantling the mechanisms that created the middle class.
States that want to teach a sanitized version of American history, that want to pretend systemic racism ended in 1965, that want to treat LGBTQ+ students as invisible, that wish to prevent discussions of climate change or economic inequality—these states do not need "local control." They have plenty of control already. What they want is freedom from accountability, freedom from standards that require them to educate all their students effectively, and freedom from federal protections that ensure education remains a path to advancement rather than a system of class reproduction.
The GI Bill threatened the old order precisely because it educated people who were not "supposed" to be educated. It created economic competitors where there had been compliant labor pools. It produced critical thinkers where there had been deferential workers. The current push to eliminate federal education programs threatens to recreate those old hierarchies, returning us to a world where your life chances are determined at birth by your parents' economic status and your state's political priorities.
A Call to Defend Educational Democracy
I write this not as a defender of bureaucratic inefficiency—federal education programs certainly need reform. I write as someone who has spent a lifetime in education, who has seen what works and what fails, who understands both the theory and the practice, and who has witnessed what happens when educational access is restricted versus when it is expanded.
Federal involvement in education represents an acknowledgment that educational opportunity is a national concern, that we sink or swim together, that Mississippi's students matter as much as Massachusetts's students. It represents the continuation of the GI Bill's revolutionary premise: that capability, not class, should determine educational access.
To dismantle these programs is not to empower states—it is to abandon millions of children to the vagaries of state politics, many in states that have repeatedly and recently demonstrated they will prioritize ideology and control over educational excellence. It is to return to a system where college is once again the exclusive province of the wealthy, where social mobility becomes increasingly rare, and where the middle class created by the GI Bill gradually disappears.
We have run this experiment before. It was called the era before the GI Bill, before Brown v. Board of Education, before Title IX, before the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, before federal student aid programs. We know how it ended: with massive inequality, with generations denied opportunity based on accidents of birth, with American potential squandered because we refused to invest in all our people.
The GI Bill's success proves that federal investment in education works—that it builds prosperity, creates opportunity, and strengthens the nation. Those who now claim that federal education programs are the problem ignore or dismiss the most successful democratization of higher education in human history. They offer us a return to the old system, dressed up in the language of freedom and local control, but leading inevitably back to educational access determined by class and geography rather than ability and effort.
Those who do not learn from history, as Santayana warned, are condemned to repeat it. We cannot afford such repetition. Our students cannot afford it. The American middle class cannot afford it. America cannot afford it.
The question before us is not whether federal education programs are perfect; they are not. The question is whether we will defend the principle that every American child deserves access to quality education, regardless of where they are born or the economic class of their parents. That principle requires federal standards, federal funding, and federal oversight. Not because Washington knows everything, but because history has proven, repeatedly and painfully, what happens when states are left entirely to their own devices—and what happens when the federal government ensures that education remains a public good rather than a private privilege.
I have lived that history. I have taught the children of both systems. And I will not be silent while we prepare to repeat mistakes we spent decades overcoming, destroying the mechanisms that built the American middle class in the name of returning power to states that will use it to recreate the very hierarchies the GI Bill helped dismantle.
Michael A. Smith is an Assistant Professor of History at several institutions and a Ph.D. candidate completing his dissertation on Nobel laureate Dr. Charles H. Townes. He is the author of "From Christian Fundamentalism to Christian Nationalism: A Primer Detailing the Danger to America" (2024) and has taught at the college level for nearly four decades.
We must also recognize that the current push to dismantle federal education programs does not exist in a vacuum. It is part of a broader project to restructure American society along lines that privilege certain groups while limiting opportunities for others—essentially reversing the democratization of opportunity that the GI Bill began.
Having researched and written extensively on Christian nationalism and threats to democratic institutions, I recognize the patterns: the rhetoric of "freedom" deployed to justify policies that actually constrain freedom for the majority; the invocation of "parental rights" used to mask efforts to control curriculum and limit exposure to diverse perspectives; the claim of government overreach made by those seeking to impose their own ideological vision while dismantling the mechanisms that created the middle class.
States that want to teach a sanitized version of American history, that want to pretend systemic racism ended in 1965, that want to treat LGBTQ+ students as invisible, that wish to prevent discussions of climate change or economic inequality—these states do not need "local control." They have plenty of control already. What they want is freedom from accountability, freedom from standards that require them to educate all their students effectively, and freedom from federal protections that ensure education remains a path to advancement rather than a system of class reproduction.
The GI Bill threatened the old order precisely because it educated people who were not "supposed" to be educated. It created economic competitors where there had been compliant labor pools. It produced critical thinkers where there had been deferential workers. The current push to eliminate federal education programs threatens to recreate those old hierarchies, returning us to a world where your life chances are determined at birth by your parents' economic status and your state's political priorities.
A Call to Defend Educational Democracy
I write this not as a defender of bureaucratic inefficiency—federal education programs certainly need reform. I write as someone who has spent a lifetime in education, who has seen what works and what fails, who understands both the theory and the practice, and who has witnessed what happens when educational access is restricted versus when it is expanded.
Federal involvement in education represents an acknowledgment that educational opportunity is a national concern, that we sink or swim together, that Mississippi's students matter as much as Massachusetts's students. It represents the continuation of the GI Bill's revolutionary premise: that capability, not class, should determine educational access.
To dismantle these programs is not to empower states—it is to abandon millions of children to the vagaries of state politics, many in states that have repeatedly and recently demonstrated they will prioritize ideology and control over educational excellence. It is to return to a system where college is once again the exclusive province of the wealthy, where social mobility becomes increasingly rare, and where the middle class created by the GI Bill gradually disappears.
We have run this experiment before. It was called the era before the GI Bill, before Brown v. Board of Education, before Title IX, before the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, before federal student aid programs. We know how it ended: with massive inequality, with generations denied opportunity based on accidents of birth, with American potential squandered because we refused to invest in all our people.
The GI Bill's success proves that federal investment in education works—that it builds prosperity, creates opportunity, and strengthens the nation. Those who now claim that federal education programs are the problem ignore or dismiss the most successful democratization of higher education in human history. They offer us a return to the old system, dressed up in the language of freedom and local control, but leading inevitably back to educational access determined by class and geography rather than ability and effort.
Those who do not learn from history, as Santayana warned, are condemned to repeat it. We cannot afford such repetition. Our students cannot afford it. The American middle class cannot afford it. America cannot afford it.
The question before us is not whether federal education programs are perfect; they are not. The question is whether we will defend the principle that every American child deserves access to quality education, regardless of where they are born or the economic class of their parents. That principle requires federal standards, federal funding, and federal oversight. Not because Washington knows everything, but because history has proven, repeatedly and painfully, what happens when states are left entirely to their own devices—and what happens when the federal government ensures that education remains a public good rather than a private privilege.
I have lived that history. I have taught the children of both systems. And I will not be silent while we prepare to repeat mistakes we spent decades overcoming, destroying the mechanisms that built the American middle class in the name of returning power to states that will use it to recreate the very hierarchies the GI Bill helped dismantle.
Michael A. Smith is an Assistant Professor of History at several institutions and a Ph.D. candidate completing his dissertation on Nobel laureate Dr. Charles H. Townes. He is the author of "From Christian Fundamentalism to Christian Nationalism: A Primer Detailing the Danger to America" (2024) and has taught at the college level for nearly four decades.
See Also Re Project 2025 "mandate"
I just had to include the last video...
Remember, this is happening almost hourly
We have already seen Trump's discrimination
It's getting worse, isn't it?
I really appreciated Michael's statement on Education.
I learned quickly that an education was the most important thing to provide to children--all children...
Equally!
It has not happened in the past
And if the republican party wants to go backward
It will get worse!
There is a major reason. They like "Stupid" as Trump tells it...
So the rich can do anything they want...
Vote to stop this madness...
God Bless Us All
Gabby
