State Senator Aric Nesbitt says the states are in a better position to make policy on education than the federal government. That’s as the Trump administration moves to shut down the U.S. Department of Education.
When asked if the loss of the Department of Education will make policy more difficult in Michigan, Nesbitt told us it won’t mean that big of a budget hit.
“Federal funding makes up mid-upper single digits of overall education funding,” Nesbitt said. “The bulk of education funding is from the local and state level, 90-plus percent. But I’d say 60, 70 percent of the regulations are driven by the federal government right now.”
Nesbitt says what President Trump’s doing at the federal level could create new opportunities for innovation at the state level.
“Take off a lot of the regulations, block grant it to the states, and we can probably figure out preschool a lot better than the federal government can figure it out. We can figure out behavioral health and mental health issues a lot better than the federal government.”
Nesbitt also says since the Department of Education started operating in 1980, test scores have only gotten worse. While the elimination of an entire federal department might seem severe, he says it’s clear there’s something wrong with education in the United States.
