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North Carolina Education: A National Leader in Freedom and Rising Achievement
North Carolina has emerged as one of America’s leading examples of education freedom and parental rights. Through home schooling, private-school choice, and public charter schools, more North Carolina families than ever are choosing the setting that best fits their children—and independent scorecards now rank the state among the strongest in the country for parental choice. That expansion of freedom is a significant achievement in its own right, apart from any single measure of public-school performance.
Protecting Students, Not Bureaucrats
Before President Trump took office, the conventional wisdom amongst policy wonks was that his promise to dismantle the Department was hollow, that there was nothing that could be done without 60 votes in the Senate. But through the thoughtful and creative use of inter-agency agreements, Secretary McMahon has shifted the administration of most statutorily mandated functions to agencies better equipped to handle them.
Every Family Already Has a School Choice Tool. Most Aren’t Using It.
For most of its history, school choice meant exactly that: a choice of schools. One building or another. Usually, the assigned public school or the nearest private one. The argument was about where a child sat from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. That argument is over. A larger one has taken its place. The question now is not where a child learns, but how.
Every State’s Untapped Advantage: ESSA Waivers and Ed-Flex
Secretary McMahon and her team have made considerable progress on one of President Trump’s key campaign promises - reorganizing and dismantling the Department of Education. Before President Trump took office, the conventional wisdom was that there was nothing that could be done to fulfill his campaign promise short of an act of Congress. But by using The Economy Act’s Interagency agreements, the Administration has managed to shift functions to departments better able to execute them.
Taking Education Back from D.C.: Waiving Federal Control
Abolishing the Department of Education (ED) has been a campaign promise for Republican presidential candidates since Ronald Reagan ran in 1980, when ED was only a year old (Hess, 2023). When President Trump campaigned on this promise in 2024, experts doubted whether he could muster the political support to deliver on it (Lobosco, 2024).