Education Departments Constitutionally Must Be Closed and Repealed

Executives and legislators are required by their oaths to interpret the Constitution independently and use their powers accordingly.

Both national and state education departments are unconstitutional in at least three ways.

First, few if any constitutional laws exist regarding education; and no critical mass of constitutional laws anywhere justifies having an education department.

Constitutional laws must be passed under republican constitutions, and such constitutions must enumerate limited powers. Constitutional laws must use enumerated powers. They must be passed by legislators. They must not be attempts to grab either the executive power to determine enforcement or the judicial power to opine on cases. Constitutional laws merely define certain constitutionally-allowable rules and sanctions that apply to everyone.

If any constitutional laws do exist regarding education, they do not require a dedicated, specialized department to enforce them. And in any case, the choices of whether to create, organize, staff, allocate funds to, and oversee such a department, and the choices of how to perform these tasks, would be solely the choices of executives. Constitutionally, these choices would not be controlled by any so-called laws through which legislators try to grab executive power.

Second, “No person… shall be deprived of… property without due process of law…”

Due process of law is the result of following constitutional processes. In the national government, constitutional processes are limited to controlling war, regularization of cross-jurisdiction commerce, justice, and supporting government operations. Taxes that support this scope are constitutional, but taxes that support other scope aren’t. Inflation is unconstitutional.

Third, “… nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.”

Property is not only real estate, property is a fundamental entity. Public uses that support constitutional scope provide just compensation, but public uses that don’t support constitutional scope don’t.

In the national government and in each state government, each executive swears an oath, either to protect the Constitution or to support it. He can only uphold his oath if he interprets constitutionality himself and only enforces law that he interprets is constitutional. So then, every president since Jimmy Carter has had the duty to close the Department of Education.

Each legislator swears an oath to support the Constitution. He can only uphold his oath if he interprets constitutionality himself and passes new law or repeals existing law in the ways that he interprets are required by the Constitution. So then, every congressman since Carter’s term in office has had the duty to formally repeal the statutes and appropriations through which congressmen try to grab the power to create, continue, and fund the Department of Education.

Rigorously upholding the Constitution on schooling will soon enough bring the practical benefit of greatly freeing people to innovate to help young people rapidly build considerable general-purpose expertise in reading, writing, and problem-solving.

Donald Trump’s actions in his second term have been giving us tantalizing glimpses of the strong power of a constitutionalist executive to uphold the Constitution. But as we see these actions unfold, we need to keep in mind that all executives and legislators have the duty to uphold the Constitution much more strongly than any of them are doing, even now.

So far, little or nothing has resiliently changed in the national government’s legislative, executive, or judicial branches, in the state governments, or in any party’s processes. We still are very far from being vigilantly protected against Progressives retaking the citadel.

And we can count on being stuck with Progressives who are eager to work for governments, and being stuck with Progressive cronies, forever. Progressives will certainly still be around, in large numbers, and dangerous, after DOGE disbands on July 4, 2026 and also after Trump’s term ends on January 20, 2029.

We need much more than encouraging headlines and cleaning out Progressive bureaus and personnel: we need to robustly bring into operation the ratifying generation’s vision and design. We need to replace the processes of Progressives, who defy the Constitution, with the processes of the Constitution and of at least one supporting party, which will limit governments.

Government people must use their constitutional powers against other government people to severely limit them.