No Child Left Behind ruined our schools. It created a common core curriculum that is minimal and woefully inadequate. Schools prepare children to pass tests and college entry without celebrating vocations and other types of intelligence.
Department of education is useless. It needs to not be eliminated but transformed into ensuring protections for students with additional needs are getting appropriate services, the laws in place are followed, and the funding those children need is not directed to the general school population. All children deserve access to education. Children with additional needs do not have it.
Additionally, schools need the means to protect their students. This includes the ability to remove dangerous students permanently and have smaller classrooms so teachers can know their students better.