Rokita to Duncan: Education Status Quo is Unacceptable; Department Must Streamline

Press Release

Representative Todd Rokita (IN-4) today questioned Secretary of Education Arne Duncan at a hearing of the House Education and Workforce Committee regarding the Obama administration's FY2013 budget request, which would increase funding for the Department of Education by $1.7 billion.

"Secretary Duncan came and argued that we should be applauding the federal government's role in education, but the available evidence suggests otherwise," said Rokita. "Reading, math and science scores have stayed the same even as federal education spending has skyrocketed over the past four decades, and yet the administration is asking for even more money for policies that aren't working. And in spite of Secretary Duncan's effort to cut programs, there's apparently no plan to cut the number of bureaucrats to streamline the department -- something that I've introduced legislation to address."

Last month, the Education and Workforce Committee passed an amendment offered by Rokita to the Student Success Act that would require the Secretary of Education to eliminate Department of Education staff positions in more than 100 programs deemed inefficient or duplicative. Click here to read a recent post by Rokita explaining more details about his bill.

As Indiana's Secretary of State from 2003-2010, Rokita ran a bureaucracy on a 1987 budget, unadjusted for inflation, and he made the case to Duncan that the Department of Education and other federal agencies should seek similar methods of eliminating waste and inefficiency.

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