edCircuit note: Donna Krache wrote this column in August 2015, as candidates campaigned in Iowa ahead of the 2016 presidential election, naming five education topics for them to address. Krache’s column is unchanged below. After it, an update explains what the U.S. Department of Education does today, how its role changed in 2025 and 2026, and where those five topics stand now.
Like the major presidential candidates, I spent last week in Iowa and made a stop at the Iowa State Fair. No, I’m not running for anything, but that all-American atmosphere of anything-fried-on-a-stick along with baby-kissing, hand-shaking politicians got me thinking about what I would say to the candidates if I could have a few minutes of their time away from the crowds.
So like any good educator, I did my homework. I heard candidates’ speeches and listened to reactions. I went to the candidates’ websites in search of detailed position statements and noticed that only one or two even mention education, albeit in the context of a politically vague phrase like “improve opportunity” — or if they are giving away free college tuition, always a winner with young voters. There’s a lot of pandering. But a serious discussion about this crucial component of our society, education, much less a demonstration of any understanding of it? I didn’t see it.
I’m not naive. I realize that in the minds of many, there are more important issues. The economy, terrorism, job growth, immigration — any or all of these issues may trump (no pun) education as priorities in the minds of many voters. And the candidates have strong views on each, but when it comes to education, there seem to be a lot of glittering generalities and few specifics, which tells me they don’t know what they are talking about on an issue that should demand some serious focus.
So here’s my suggestion: The way I see it, there are five topics any serious presidential candidate needs to address to prove his/her “street cred” in education. And the positions on each need to be thoughtfully developed with solid reasoning that convinces voters that these positions make sense for students, teachers, parents and society as a whole.
Here are the five broad topics that candidates need to develop and articulate positions for and the questions they need to guide them:
1- Assessing student performance – How do we determine whether learning has taken place? How do we measure student progress? The recent PDK/Gallup poll indicated that most Americans believe there is too much standardized testing in public schools. What’s your response to this? Is there another approach we should be taking to assess student performance? Who (or what) quantifies “progress”? What constitutes a “failing” school? How should we address students in a “failing” school?
2- Evaluating teacher performance – Most teachers I know don’t object to some sort of performance evaluation, but is tying it to student test performance really the answer? (When a patient dies, do we label the doctor “ineffective”? See my August 11 column on Teacher Evaluation.) How would you propose to assess teacher performance and raise the status of teachers to attract and retain the best?
3- Crumbling physical structures – In many parts of the country, school buildings house the same students from generations. Some of them, especially many of those in the cities, are in abysmal shape: Many adults would be horrified to use the restrooms in some schools I’ve visited, and they wouldn’t put up with this in their offices. What do you propose to do about this? What should the federal government’s role be, if any, in the maintenance of these buildings and construction of new ones?
4- Common Core – Please articulate that you understand what the Common Core State Standards are, including their pedagogical pros and cons, before you further politicize CCSS with phrases that have nothing to do with education. Then take a position that’s based on a solid educational rationale. We may not all agree with you, but we will respect you for arriving at your stance this way.
5-The Role of the Department of Education – The U.S. Department of Education currently administers a budget of over $67 billion and has a huge staff: Its organizational directory, which doesn’t even include all its employees, is 41 pages long. That’s a lot of resources. How would you propose to channel all of these resources to truly benefit the schools that the DOE serves? What do you believe the role of the DOE should be? If elected, what qualifications would you seek in a potential secretary of education?
I’m not asking for much. I don’t expect to find a candidate with whom I agree on all five topics. All I’m asking for a kind of position “road map” that demonstrates that the candidate has some knowledge base and wants to talk beyond “improving education” for all.
But, Mr./Ms. Candidate, I do ask that as you develop your education platform, you actually talk to teachers and principals, not bureaucrats. Spend real time with them. Find out what’s working and what isn’t. They are the real experts as to what is going on in the classroom, and that is where education policy needs to start.
And if you really want to demonstrate some education street cred, stop with the catchy titles. Please, no more “No Child Left Behind” and “Race to the Top.” Spend more time talking to the right people and researching the problem, and less time on school photo ops. We need real leadership on this issue that’s been relegated to runner-up status for way too long.
The opinions expressed here are solely those of Donna Krache.
Iowa State Fair, Des Moines, Iowa – August 2015 – Photo Credit: Donna Krache
What does the Department of Education do? Krache’s five topics in 2026
Krache’s fifth topic asked candidates what the role of the Department of Education should be. Eleven years later, that question has moved to the center of national politics, and many families and educators are asking a plainer one: what does the Department of Education do, and what changes for schools if its work moves elsewhere? This update answers that question first and then returns to Krache’s other four topics. For a running overview, see edCircuit’s Department of Education hub.
What the department does, and does not do
The department does not decide what schools teach. As Education Week’s explainer by Libby Stanford (first published in October 2024 and updated in November 2025) notes, curriculum is largely set by state lawmakers and local school boards, and most school funding comes from state and local formulas. The department’s work falls into a few large areas. It sends grants to states and districts, chiefly Title I, about $18.4 billion for schools with many students from low-income families, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), about $14.2 billion for special education. It runs federal student aid, including the FAFSA, Pell Grants and student loans. Its Office for Civil Rights investigates discrimination complaints, and its Institute of Education Sciences, through the National Center for Education Statistics, runs the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), known as the Nation’s Report Card.
A Pew Research Center analysis by Drew DeSilver in March 2025 adds scale. Federal sources supplied about 13.6 percent of public elementary and secondary school funding in fiscal 2022, a figure that includes some programs outside the department, and the share varied widely, from 7.2 percent in New York to 23.3 percent in Mississippi. The department had 4,209 employees in September 2024, the fewest of any Cabinet-level agency. Krache’s 2015 figure of more than $67 billion referred to the department’s budget at the time; Pew reports net outlays of $267.9 billion in fiscal 2024, including student loans.
What changed in 2025 and 2026
K-12 Dive reported on July 14, 2025 that the Supreme Court allowed a reduction in force begun in March to proceed while the case, McMahon v. New York, continued in lower courts. The cuts took staff from about 4,133 to about 2,183. Three justices dissented.
The administration then began moving day-to-day management of programs to other agencies through interagency agreements. According to States Newsroom reporter Shauneen Miranda in July 2026, agreements have been signed with the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, State, Treasury, Interior and Justice, and Labor now has expanded roles in administering elementary and secondary, postsecondary, and career, technical and adult education programs. The department says in its fact sheets that it keeps its statutory responsibilities and oversight. Supporters, including acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, describe Labor’s role as a service that leaves programs run by Education’s career staff; critics, including Sen. Tammy Baldwin, argue the arrangement is more complicated and less efficient for states and districts.
Congress has not settled the question. The American Educational Research Association’s August 2026 policy summary reports that the House Education and Workforce Committee advanced 10 bills on July 15 that would write most of the agreements into law. On July 30 the Senate’s education committee advanced a bipartisan bill, sponsored by Sens. Tim Kaine, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, that would bar transferring four offices, including Elementary and Secondary Education and Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, by interagency agreement. Neither had passed the full chamber at the time of the report. For districts, the laws behind Title I and IDEA are unchanged, and Congress still sets their funding; what has changed is which agency staff they may deal with.
Krache’s other four topics have also moved since 2015.
Assessing student performance
The national picture has worsened since 2015. The 2024 Nation’s Report Card, released on January 29, 2025, showed reading scores down 2 points in both fourth and eighth grade compared with 2022. About 40 percent of fourth graders scored below the NAEP Basic level in reading, the largest share since 2002, and about a third of eighth graders did, the largest share recorded. Fourth-grade math rose 2 points, eighth-grade math was flat, and the gap between the highest- and lowest-performing students has widened for about a decade.
Evaluating teachers
Krache doubted that tying evaluations to test scores would work. A study by Joshua Bleiberg, Eric Brunner, Erica Harbatkin, Matthew Kraft and Matthew Springer, Taking Teacher Evaluation to Scale (NBER working paper, 2023, later published in a journal in 2025), used the staggered timing of state reforms of the early 2010s to estimate their effect. It found precisely estimated null effects, on average, on student achievement, graduation and college enrollment. The authors point to political opposition, decentralized governance, limited capacity and the lack of higher pay to offset lower job security. The finding concerns those systems at scale, not whether good feedback helps individual teachers improve.
School buildings
The National Center for Education Statistics’ School Pulse Panel, reported in February 2024, found that the average main school building was 49 years old, 38 percent were built before 1970, 31 percent of schools used portable buildings, and 21 percent had major repair or renovation under way. The data are experimental, and about a fifth of schools did not know their building’s age.
Common Core
Standards and curriculum remain state and local decisions, as Education Week’s explainer notes, so the positions Krache asked presidential candidates to take on the Common Core now belong mainly to governors, legislators and state boards of education.
Krache’s closing advice, that candidates should talk with teachers and principals before setting policy, applies equally to the current debate. District leaders can act on it in the other direction: track which agency now handles each federal grant, keep finance and special education staff informed, and tell their members of Congress how the changes are working in their schools.
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