Scrapping Education Dept. Could Be Tough Task

Education Week reports:

During the recent midterm election, a number of conservative Republican candidates eager to clamp down on what they see as bureaucratic waste took aim at scrapping a familiar target: the 30-year-old U.S. Department of Education.

But if past attempts are any guide—including under President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s and a House Republican majority in the mid-1990s—a push to abolish the agency as a cabinet-level department faces steep political and logistical hurdles.

The latest wave of interest in eliminating the department came from candidates in this year’s electoral contests. Among them is Sen.-elect Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who identifies with the tea party movement and its philosophy of a more limited role for the federal government in such areas as the economy and health care.