<P> 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 . It began operating on May 4, 1980, having been created after the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was split into the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services by the Department of Education Organization Act, which President Jimmy Carter signed into law on October 17, 1979 . </P> <P> The Department of Education is administered by the United States Secretary of Education . It has under 4,000 employees (2018) and an annual budget of $68 billion (2016). Its official abbreviation is "ED" ("DOE" refers to the United States Department of Energy) and is also often abbreviated informally as "DoEd". </P> <P> 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 . </P> <P> 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 . </P>

What is the role of department of education