United States Department of Education
Seal of the U.S. Department of Education
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Flag of the U.S. Department of Education
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 Lyndon Baines Johnson Building, Department Headquarters |
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| Department overview | |
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| Formed | October 17, 1979 |
| Preceding agencies | |
| Jurisdiction | Federal government of the United States |
| Headquarters | 400 Maryland Avenue SW, Washington, D.C. Coordinates: 38°53′11.45″N 77°1′7.86″W / 38.8865139°N 77.0188500°W |
| Employees | 4,400 (2016) |
| Annual budget | $68 billion (2016) |
| Department executives |
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| Key document | |
| Website | www |
The United States Department of Education (ED or DoED), also referred to as the ED for (the) Education Department, is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government. Recreated by the Department of Education Organization Act (Public Law 96-88) and signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on October 17, 1979, it began operating on May 4, 1980.
The Department of Education Organization Act divided the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare into the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services. The Department of Education is administered by the United States Secretary of Education. It has approximately 4,400 employees and an annual budget of $68 billion (2016).
The agency's official abbreviation is "ED", because "DOE" instead refers to the United States Department of Energy. It is also often abbreviated informally as "DoEd".
The primary functions of the Department of Education are to "establish policy for, administer and coordinate most federal assistance to education, collect data on US schools, and to enforce federal educational laws regarding privacy and civil rights." The Department of Education does not establish schools or colleges.
Unlike the systems of most other countries, education in the United States is highly decentralized, and the federal government and Department of Education are not heavily involved in determining curricula or educational standards (with the recent exception of the No Child Left Behind Act). This has been left to state and local school districts. The quality of educational institutions and their degrees is maintained through an informal private process known as accreditation, over which the Department of Education has no direct public jurisdictional control.
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