WILLIAM BENNETT, LAMAR ALEXANDER: We both ran the Education Dept and there are 3 things we should keep

The United States survived for two centuries without a federal Department of Education and could do so again.  In the 45 years the department has existed, students haven’t made much progress. Nine-year-olds, for example, are reading no better today than they did when the department was created in 1979. 

The truth is that having a cabinet-level agency devoted to education has not made our kids smarter, our schools better or our academic achievement stronger — and it has added to runaway growth in education spending.