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Events • April 29, 2020 

# 40 Years of the U.S. Department of Education: Why Was It Created? 

Aside from a short‐​lived data collection entity, before 1980 there was no Department of Education. Why did it come into existence then? What were the public policy reasons? What were the political reasons? What were the primary drivers behind the department’s creation?

[![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) 
This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/). 

##### Featuring 

##### Christopher Cross 

##### Ron Kimberling 

![Kevin Kosar headshot](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2022-10/kevin-kosar.png?itok=Fh0jyhC-) 

##### Kevin Kosar 

American Enterprise Institute

[![Neal McCluskey Cropped](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2023-11/mccluskey-cropped.jpg?itok=I-QI0yJD)](/people/neal-mccluskey) 

##### [Neal McCluskey](/people/neal-mccluskey)

Former Director, Center for Educational Freedom, Cato Institute