11. Department of Education · Notable · Needs Congress

Let states opt out of federal K-12 programs under ESEA

Attempted

Printed page 351 11. Department of Education

“To restore state and local control of education and reduce the bureaucratic and compliance burden, Congress should allow states to opt out of the dozens of federal K–12 education programs authorized under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and instead allow states to put their share of federal funding toward any lawful education purpose under state law.”

What has happened

Aug 21, 2026 Attempted
Ed-Flex reached 25 states, letting state agencies waive selected ESEA statutory and regulatory requirements for their districts without coming back to Washington. Congress has done nothing: the one bill in the direction of the ask, the Returning Education to Our States Act, was read twice and referred on 2025-04-09 and never moved, and no measure in the 119th Congress would let a state take its ESEA share and spend it on any lawful state education purpose.
- ED press release: Additional Ed-Flex Approvals Reach Historic 25-State Milestone
  Primary Executive branch Aug 21, 2026
- S. 1402, Returning Education to Our States Act — read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
  Primary Congress Apr 9, 2025
Jun 16, 2026 Attempted
The Department is doing by waiver what the Quote asks Congress to do by statute. Indiana's “Returning Education to the States” waiver lets the state combine five federal funding streams into one — about $50 million over four years — pilots district-level consolidation of ESEA Titles II-A and IV-A, and drops the duplicate federal high school accountability system. It is a waiver, not an opt-out: the programs and their purposes survive, the money must still be spent under ESEA, and the state's participation is conditional on the Secretary's approval.
- ED press release: Department Approves Indiana's Returning Education to the States Waiver (five ESEA funding streams consolidated)
  Primary Executive branch Jun 16, 2026

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

One negative search covered this ask and #878.
The A-PLUS Act (Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success), which the Quote’s mechanism comes from, has no 119th-Congress incarnation under that name or any variant found among the bills we keep and search.
Shares Evidence with #804 (Block-grant federal education funds to states without strings), which is leveled on the same waivers; this Quote asks specifically for a statutory opt-out from ESEA programs, which no waiver provides.

Action: create
Object: State opt-out of ESEA programs (APLUS Act)
ID: 879