The quality of American education depends primarily on students, families, educators, schools, communities, and state and local governments. The federal government nevertheless has important responsibilities in supporting educational opportunity, administering federal student aid, collecting national education data, and enforcing federal education and civil-rights laws.

The U.S. Department of Education should remain capable of carrying out the responsibilities assigned to it by Congress.

Recent efforts to substantially reduce the Department's workforce, transfer responsibilities to other agencies, and reduce the federal role in education have created an important national debate about which responsibilities belong at the federal, state, and local levels.

We call on Congress and the Administration to preserve an effective U.S. Department of Education while pursuing reforms that improve efficiency, accountability, and educational outcomes.

Specifically, we support:

• Maintaining sufficient staff and resources to administer responsibilities established by federal law.
• Protecting access to federal student aid and educational opportunities for students from low-income families.
• Maintaining effective enforcement of federal protections for students with disabilities and other civil-rights protections established by law.
• Preserving reliable national education research and statistics so policymakers, educators, families, and researchers can evaluate educational outcomes.
• Supporting programs that expand educational opportunity while respecting the authority of states, school districts, educators, and families over matters reserved to them.
• Evaluating federal education programs based on measurable outcomes and eliminating unnecessary administrative burdens when they do not improve education.
• Ensuring that major transfers or eliminations of congressionally established education responsibilities receive appropriate congressional consideration and public scrutiny.

Supporting the Department of Education does not require believing that every education decision should be made in Washington.

Federal, state, and local governments have different responsibilities. A strong education system should respect those boundaries while ensuring that important national responsibilities are carried out effectively.

We ask Congress and the Administration to strengthen the Department of Education rather than dismantle it, and to pursue education reform with students' opportunities and outcomes at the center of the debate.