Blog

Your Education Road Map

Politics K-12®

Politics K-12 kept watch on education policy and politics in the nation’s capital and in the states. This blog is no longer being updated, but you can continue to explore these issues on edweek.org by visiting our related topic pages: Federal, States.

Federal

Gov. Perry Would Scrap the U.S. Department of Education

By Alyson Klein — November 15, 2011 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

So it’s official: Gov. Rick Perry is now calling for getting rid of the U.S. Department of Education, as part of the GOP presidential hopeful’s new plan to overhaul the federal government, released today.

As anyone with access to YouTube knows, Perry, a Republican from Texas, made a major gaffe in a recent presidential debate, when he was unable to remember all three of the federal agencies he was planning to eliminate. He remembered the Education Department was on the hit list, though. The other two agencies are the Department of Commerce and the Department of Energy.

But, at the time, his official campaign plan didn’t actually call for scrapping the department, just hacking it in half. Apparently, he’s changed his mind. Check out the whole plan here.

Perry doesn’t give any details as to just how he’d go about dismantling the Department. But it’s tough to do.

Related Tags: