This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, May 4th, 2017.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The Department of Education doesn't educate children,

but it does create expensive compliance problems that states and localities must solve.

Vicky Alger, author of Failure, the Federal Miseducation of America's children,

argues that the Department of Education at best achieves nothing.

We spoke last week.

I ask this question to a lot of lawmakers, which

is, what is the one area of government that the feds should have absolutely no role in and almost

across the board Republicans at least jump right to the Department of Education and shutting it down.

Why is that such a high priority?

Well I think it's such a high priority first and foremost from a principled stance this is one of those

areas that the federal government clearly has zero constitutional authority in

fact the word education doesn't even appear once in the US Constitution.

But secondly, even if you believe that there is some quote-unquote traditional or historical

partnership role between the federal government and the states.

Let's look at the results.

We are spending on par with defense spending as a country,

and we've been doing this for decades and student achievement

particularly among disadvantaged student populations is still really

hasn't changed.

Test scores, proficiency rates, across the board, grade level, subject areas,

...