CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY: Education Freedom and Parental Rights Director Ginny Gentles Testifies Before House Appropriations Subcommittee on ‘Federal Investments in Elementary Education’

On February 26, Ginny Gentles, DFI’s Director of Education Freedom and Parental Rights, testified before the House Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee. Her message was clear: More federal funding will not fix America’s failing K-12 education system. Instead, the real solution is choice—giving families the power to choose the best educational options for their children.

FULL TESTIMONY:

Chairman Aderholt, Ranking Member DeLauro, and members of the subcommittee thank you for the opportunity to testify. As a parent of two school-aged children, a product of public schools, and a former federal and state education bureaucrat, I’ve had a front-row seat to the American education system’s challenges. 

When I worked for a former subcommittee member in the late 1990s, only 31% of fourth-grade students and 33% of eighth-grade students were proficient readers.  I wrote talking points for my boss lamenting alarming test results and met with organizations pleading for more funding. They got their wish: a reliable stream of ever-increasing federal education funding and steady employment for federally funded and often unionized adults. But where is the evidence that the money truly benefited students? 

Despite dramatic increases in annual education funding and the $190 billion in Covid-era supplemental funding, students’ academic outcomes are historically low and the achievement gap is widening. 

Our country is experiencing an undeclared crisis in education. NAEP scores have declined for over a decade and plummeted after Covid-era school closures. There is no state in the country where the majority of students are performing at grade level in math and reading. If more money was the solution, why are 94% of elementary and middle schoolers living in districts that haven’t returned to pre-pandemic achievement levels?

Despite the vast sums poured into the K-12 system for learning loss recovery, 70% of students aren’t reading or doing math proficiently, and 40% lack basic math and reading skills. These struggling fourth graders don’t know the difference between odd and even numbers and eighth graders can’t find the midpoint between two numbers on a number line. 

Alarmingly, only 2% of black eighth-grade students in Milwaukee are proficient in math. These scores are heartbreaking. These students likely will never catch up.

Our education system is robbing children of the future they deserve. Every indicator shows that it is broken.

Federal Control Failed

This ongoing, systemic disaster reveals that the U.S. Department of Education has failed to fulfill its mission to “promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness.” By imposing onerous regulations and reporting requirements, as well as a ceaselessly shifting political agenda, the bloated Department makes it harder for the people closest to students to do their jobs well.

Title I funding began flowing from the federal government sixty years ago as part of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) – 15 years before the creation of the U.S. Department of Education. The program’s formulas have become increasingly complex, the monitoring requirements have burdened states and districts, each level of government takes a hefty cut of the $18 billion in annual funding, and low-income students continue to struggle. Ensuring that all students have access to high-quality education is a worthy goal. Pretending that Title I in its current form has met that goal is foolish. 

The federal government passed the law currently known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), fifty years ago – 5 years before the U.S. Department of Education was created. The $14 billion in annual IDEA funding fuels a mammoth bureaucratic labyrinth that too often harms children with disabilities, while forcing parents to hire lawyers and sue in order to receive federally-promised accommodations and services.

Teachers Unions Harm Students

Special interests like the school unions exacerbate our nation’s academic crisis. In 1979, the National Education Association (NEA) pushed for expanded federal control of education and the creation of the U.S. Department of Education. During the pandemic, the national unions pressured the federal government to keep schools closed. Today, state and local unions are closing schools with strikes, blocking tutoring and reading training, and even protecting sexual predators in K-12 schools. Recent coverage of a Michigan union contract revealed that teachers can be drunk on the job four times before a union member can be fired. 

Solutions

So, what should be done? The answer is not pouring more federal funding into a fundamentally broken and union-controlled K-12 system. Academic outcomes are worse than when I was a 22-year-old congressional staffer. 

Instead, we should empower states and families.

State leaders are responding to the academic crisis by improving literacy instruction and expanding education freedom. Tennessee just created a statewide education savings account program that will serve 20,000 students initially. Congress should consider redirecting federal funding and passing a federal tax credit that would supplement state-based school-choice programs.

Additionally, combining federal education funding streams could reduce ineffective reporting and resource-intensive monitoring requirements, allowing states to allocate taxpayer dollars in a more student-centered way.

Conclusion

Let’s stop pretending that the status quo is working. It’s time for a new approach that prioritizes the needs of students.