United States Department of Education - Wikipedia

On September 27, 1979, Congress gave final approval to create the Department of Education. From the article:

"A previous Department of Education was created in 1867 but was soon demoted to an Office in 1868.[12][13] As an agency not represented in the president's cabinet, it quickly became a relatively minor bureau in the Department of the Interior. In 1939, the bureau was transferred to the Federal Security Agency, where it was renamed the Office of Education. In 1953, the Federal Security Agency was upgraded to cabinet-level status as the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

In 1979, President Carter advocated for creating a cabinet-level Department of Education.[14] Carter's plan was to transfer most of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare's education-related functions to the Department of Education.[14] Carter also planned to transfer the education-related functions of the departments of Defense, Justice, Housing and Urban Development, and Agriculture, as well as a few other federal entities.[14] Among the federal education-related programs that were not proposed to be transferred were Headstart, the Department of Agriculture's school lunch and nutrition programs, the Department of the Interior's Native Americans' education programs, and the Department of Labor's education and training programs.[14]

Upgrading Education to cabinet level status in 1979 was opposed by many in the Republican Party, who saw the department as unconstitutional, arguing that the Constitution doesn't mention education, and deemed it an unnecessary and illegal federal bureaucratic intrusion into local affairs. However, many see the department as constitutional under the Commerce Clause, and that the funding role of the Department is constitutional under the Taxing and Spending Clause. The National Education Association supported the bill, while the American Federation of Teachers opposed it.[15]

As of 1979, the Office of Education had 3,000 employees and an annual budget of $12 billion.[16] Congress appropriated to the Department of Education an annual budget of $14 billion and 17,000 employees when establishing the Department of Education.[17] During the 1980 presidential campaign, Gov. Reagan called for the total elimination of the U.S. Department of Education, severe curtailment of bilingual education, and massive cutbacks in the federal role in education. Once in office, President Reagan significantly reduced its budget.[18]"