May 4, 2020, marks 40 years to the day when the U.S. Department of Education opened its doors. The Cabinet-level agency is no longer in its infancy; Americans have four decades of data on academic outcomes by which to measure its impact on their children. For their part, teachers and school leaders have 40 years of an ever-increasing program count, and a mounting bureaucratic compliance burden by which they can measure the impact the agency has had on their working lives.