Education Department, at 25, Still Has Its Skeptics

2 former secretaries favor a downgrade from Cabinet level.

Washington

As the Department of Education marks its 25th anniversary this year, it continues to fend off critics who say it should be eliminated or demoted in the hierarchy of the federal government.

Even some who have served at the helm of the department believe that the current structure of the Education Department doesn’t work. During a panel discussion on Sept. 9 marking a quarter-century since the department began operating, former Republican Secretaries of Education William J. Bennett and Lamar Alexander agreed that the agency should return to a sub-Cabinet-level federal office of education, which began in 1868.

“Did creating this department 25 years ago make things better?” asked Mr. Alexander, who served as secretary from 1991 to 1993 under President George H.W. Bush. “I doubt the things it has done couldn’t have been done by an office of education and an adviser,” he added, referring to the idea of an education adviser to the president stationed...