Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde advocated for closing the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), describing it as “one of the worst monstrosities that’s ever been created” during an interview with conservative speaker Ben Shapiro on Oct. 4.
“[The DOE] tries to tell you how to educate your kids from Washington, D.C.,” Hovde said. “The way you educate your kids in a small town in Wisconsin may be very different than in Chicago or Miami or L.A. or someplace else.”
Hovde, running against incumbent U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin in the Nov. 5 election, has painted the agency as a source of youth indoctrination and an entity with too much bureaucratic overreach.
Hovde’s position reflects what has become a major talking point among Republicans and a key part of the party’s platform. Former President Donald Trump vowed to shut down the agency, and the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 has called for the termination of the DOE, calling it a “convenient one-stop shop for the woke education cartel.”
Hovde told Shapiro he believes in localized education and that students are better off not having bureaucrats and politicians decide what children learn in schools. He further advocated for educational decisions to be handled on the state and local level. But that is how the current education system primarily works.
Contrary to Hovde’s claims, state and local taxes go to state and local schools, which are run by procedures decided by a board of elected or appointed officials. What information is disseminated in schools is also not typically decided by the federal government.
The DOE is in charge of allocating federal funding for K-12 schools and administering federal student loans and aid for college and university students. It also helps disabled children and children from low-income families have equal access to educational resources through its various programs.
One controversy surrounding the DOE stems from its Office of Civil Rights, which investigates claims of discrimination. The office is supposed to investigate claims of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and other forms of discrimination. It is also supposed to investigate sexual assault, but rules written by the former President Barack Obama’s administration to strengthen assault investigations were eliminated by the Trump administration due to criticism that the rules were “too harsh.”
Republicans continue to advocate for school choice, parental rights
Republicans and conservative groups have remained strong advocates for school choice and localized education. Roughly65% of Republicans view the DOE unfavorably, as opposed to only 38% of Democrats, according to a study done by Pew Research Center.
This is in part due to increased worry among Republicans that the school system is indoctrinating their children, or turning them “woke.” Many conservative parents fear that public schools prioritize social justice and awareness over academic achievement, which pushes them toward private, usually Christian schools.
At a campaign rally in Mosinee in early September, Trump said he wants to send education policy to the state level in Wisconsin so U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson or U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany could run it, despite neither playing a role in state government or the Wisconsin Department of Instruction, which oversees education in the state.
Johnson himself advocated for school choice and a shift away from “these massive, large schools” back toward “the old one-room school” at a Mom’s for Liberty event held during the Republican National Convention in July.
Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson initiated the first school choice movement in the 1980s and early 1990s. Thompson’s policy reforms centered on introducing private school vouchers, public charter schools and public school open enrollment.
Hovde has echoed these calls for school choice and more parental rights, accusing schools of pushing “gender ideology” on students.
"They're trying to social engineer your children, so I am just so fundamentally opposed to this,” Hovde told Shapiro.
Baldwin and other Democrats have continued to defend the agency and argued calls for the closure of the DOE by Republicans shows the party’s lack of support for teachers and public schools.
"Every kid deserves a quality education no matter where they live or how much their family earns," Baldwin said in a statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "That means funding our schools and supporting the Department of Education, not attacking it."
Baldwin and Hovde will face off for the U.S. Senate seat on Nov. 5. Voters can find their polling place by visiting the MyVote Wisconsin website.
