I think it’s apparent that the DOE has not fulfilled its duties to improve the educational needs of our children. It’s to me, like having a democratic PAC inside the white house agencies. During COVID, how they treated our children, was the absolute turning point for me. I’m grateful to live in a state(FL) that has passed school choice, for my grandchildren. The fact that we’ve dropped to the 40th ranking among developed countries is embarrassing. We are graduating students unprepared. No wonder they need to further their education by going to college. The anti closure folks, keep talking about the rich being rewarded. Well, the rich already pay extra to educate their kids by sending them to private school etc. What about the poor? They have no alternatives. Something needs to change. With the DOE gone, the locals will have no one to blame when the parents come screaming .
I agree with everything Marie says. However, the latest PISA scores I found showed us ranked #18. That’s great for a middling country but nowhere near where we need to be. In my view, U.S. education is a tale of two systems. Many elite schools often in suburban areas where parents demand rigor are pretty good - maybe top 10 on a standalone basis. But inner city urban schools are often an unmitigated disaster, and they are creating a permanent underclass that is increasingly dependent on government largesse. The vast majority (70-80%) of inner city parents want reform or school choice, but get neither. The unions are too powerful, and they fund the party that protects them from reform.
That's been our experience. According to this, 47% of California 8th graders can read and write at grade level or above and only 35% can perform math by those same metrics. This is what systemic failure looks like by the numbers.
That’s odd, because all I hear from that state is that everyone else is way behind them in terms of educating their youth. I swear we should rename the state of California to the state of Denial.
That was true decades ago, but due to mismanagement, corruption (google billion dollar ipad scandal) and unions protecting bad teachers, CA schools are on average a trash heap.
I agree with you about the impact of the unions - look at Chicago public education. You would be surprised how many upper middle class schools in the suburbs also graduate poorly educated kids. Its atrocious. Bringing accountability to local level is a necessary step in the right direction.
My kids go to a small, rural school. It is abysmal. I don't think we have the mass chaos that I read about in inner city schools. However, academic rigor is discouraged. Students are literally not allowed to fail the first quarter. All resources are directed at the lowest performing students (fine for them to get their needs addressed, but how as a society do we expect to survive if we don't also foster the needs of our highest performers?). Money is spent on adult "outreach". I kid you not, we have children who can't read and children crying out for more advanced coursework and the district spends money on such programs as christmas basket making (I took this class and while it was fun, I don't see how it meets the mission of educating our children), fly fishing (for adults), and yoga (also for adults). Oh and they tore down the basketball court on school property and built a food bank. While a food bank is nice for the community, I strongly feel that they should not have taken the kid's basketball court away. The entire priority system is screwed up and our kids suffer for it.
At any rate, the kids with means are sent to boarding school or the nearby private school. The rest languish in a system that has no interest in them.
Recent stories of 2 students (CT and TN) suing (or won a suit against) school districts for graduating them while they are functional illiterates. The CT student graduated as a 3.4 GPA honors student now enrolled with scholarship at UConn! And read yesterday that Harvard (who only admits 4% of applicants and holds itself as extremely selective) is having to provide significant numbers of remedial math classes as many students can’t handle basic algebra!
But look more deeply at the ranking methodology. 60% of score is based on adults 25+ holding some college education or at least a high school diploma. And many of the top states’ high ranking is due to the amount and quality of their post-high school educational facilities. In no way am I down-playing that factor, but the focus we need is not on post-high school, our universities have the funds and ability to provide that. We must focus on the K-12 levels and we tend to do a poor job of managing that. I agree, return the monies and accountability to the locals.
Our kids aren't being well educated! Let's cut funding, and that will fix everything!
Btw- these illiterate students... Were 100% of them athletes given a few ride so their colleges can exploit them for the hundreds of millions of dollars college sports generates? Or was it only 99%?
I would say that cutting education funding is probably not going to solve that problem.
Those that weren't college athletes being explored, did they grow up underfunded schools and had lost teachers working for peanuts without enough schoolbooks and resources?
Cutting funding probably isn't going to solve those problems either.
Teaching kids that the world was made by an angry magical psychopath who entertains himself by creating a horrible world, dropping us into it, and then torturing us for all eternity for failing... Well, that isn't going to help either.
I have not read anywhere that there is a proposal or advocacy to cut funding to the schools but to return K-12 monies back to the States rather than be distributed/managed by some monolithic bureaucracy more focused on funding administrative and social goals than education. No, these two were not athletes, just everyday students- one in an urban system one in a suburban system. But you bring up a good point - with the amounts of dollars pushed through the DoE, how could ANY public school system possibly be underfunded? (Chicago Public Schools receive the highest per student funding in the nation, yet fail miserably at their most basic and primary task of educating students.) But one commonality in both was the effort to push through students to meet “success goals” rather than delaying their grade advancements to be sure that they received a proper education.
I'm in Chicago. My kids go to Chicago Public Schools. Online learning was horrible, but it hurt the lowest performers a lot harder than the upper class.
That said outside of the pandemic ... Chicago has some of the top performing Schools in the Nation. Payton is #5 in the country, #1 in Illinois. Northside is #35 in the US, #2 in the state, and Whitney is #52 in the US, #3 in the state. The kids that go to these schools receive a very classical education. Lots of Shakespeare and most have already passed Algebra by 8th grade (Which is apparently not true of all Harvard Freshman anymore.)
We have a lot of kids from families who don't care about education, or don't know how to support their children even if they have an idea that education is important. One of the reasons we pay so much is because of 1) pension costs. 2) We have a lot of buildings that aren't even half full that are expensive to maintain.
School choice gives parents who give a damn a chance to get their kids out of failing neighborhood schools ... but try closing those neighborhood schools and you're called a racist.
Needs to be said that in most red states, that public money would almost certainly go into violating people first amendment rights to not be religiously indoctrinated.
Of course, those people will be outraged when those funds go into finding the WRONG religions.
Pretty sure that the people who want to teach that "physics is Jesus magic" aren't going to be cool with other publicly funded schools teaching, say, "physics is Allah magic".
But for some, the First Amendment means they have the freedom to indoctrinate people in their own particular brand of superstition while stamping out other, competing myths.
Such a deep and subtle understanding of Christianity is, no doubt, at least partially attributable to your excellent public education, at the hands of militant secularists who would drive The Trinitarian God from our classrooms and replace Him with the angry chaos monkey deity of Darwin and Marx. We're not having that anymore, nor should we be financing it with our taxes, or supporting it with our laws.
And yet the day may still come when in a flash of awareness, seemingly out of nowhere, you realize that it is all REAL and TRUE after all! It is not unknown that some of God's chosen are from among his most adamant opponents, at first.
The idea is not to cut funding for education, but for the bureaucracy by sending the money to the states, who understand better how to spend it for their population.
If the bureaucrats who introduced whole language reading method are sent packing and schools return to phonetics and reading for fun would go a long way to helping all children.
The whole Mantra you are spouting does nothing but feed division.
curious where you got your moniker, TwoBrix. Or is it "BoxoRox"?
(btw Brix is a viticultural term, to measure sugar content in grapes prior to harvesting into wine production??)
you are free to comment as you see fit but take the feedback as well.
as one said, there has not been a determination of cutting funding for students, but likely for much of the 5000 administrative heads that are on payroll. Sure dont need 90% of this "overhead' that got us to #40 in education ranking. Not being top 10 is not acceptable to me.
I feel Trump and his team will spread/share the monies "per capita/student" fairly, and we see how the students perform in a couple years.
school choice will certainly bring in some religious groups, and that is a parents choice to send their child there, or not.
(I do feel public schools need to recognize religion (cover a reasonable range here) in teaching our kids, as well as the theory of evolution. btw, Physics is Physics, just like men are men, and women are women).
it seems the bone you are picking is re TRump, not really the DOE being shuttered one day.
Just out of curiosity, how are schools funded in your state? Teacher salaries, supplies, and other resources are funded by local tax payer dollars in the state I live in. The biggest city in my state has the highest amount spent per student and it the biggest failure when it comes to student performance. It is also one of the highest paid districts for teachers. The DOE has no direct influence on the performance and funding of these schools. If what I understand is correct, the DOE will continue to pay Title 1 funds to the states, so money used at the local level from federal dollars would continue. I honestly don't think funding is insufficient, it is just used incorrectly. Also, I live in a deep blue state. Would love to learn how funding is done in your state.
You have to be careful when using the word "cutting". Democrats love to play this game (this is a hypothetical): 2020 budget for widgets was $1 billion. 2020 spending for widgets was $1.3 billion (over budget - shockiing!!). 2021 PROPOSED budget for widgets is $1.5 billion. Congress passes spending bill allocating $1.4 billion for widgets. That amount is 40% MORE than 2020 budget and 7% more than 2020 SPENDING for widgets. But because the budget proposal was for $1.5 billion, Democrats claim "GOP SLASHES funding....". It's a stupid game played viciously and relentlessly by the left.
Now - will "cutting education funding" solve the problem of a nation of failing and functionally illiterate students? NO. But will re-allocating some of the money that is cut toward actually EDUCATING those students help? It sure is worth a try, because nothing the Dept. of Education has done for 40+ years has improved education - including No Child Left Behind, a Bush II initiative. All we have done is pour billions upon billions of dollars into a bottomless cavern of woke.
I think most colleges stopped requiring SAT scores for admission. and SAT continued to reduce the testing stadards for previous years, before that. All in the name of EQUITY. "Not fair" to require a black student and a white student to answer the same math problem, or logic question etc.
also, I think many admissions are based on a prospective student securing funding that is most favorable to the college.
I SO agree.....if the DOE had ever done anything to improve results, I could vigorously defend reforming and streamlining it. But it seems like comparing the $25k per year per K-12 student cost vs. the results makes it perfectly obvious that taxpayers are not getting even a mediocre return on the investment. Taking it beyond K-12, why in the world does College cost $25k or more per year? Because schools all the way from K through Grad School are top-heavy with admininstrators Many school districts have MORE "Admin" staff than teachers. And the teachers get the low end of the pay scales. It's simply obscene. Let each State figure out how best to spend tax dollars to achieve better-educated students.
You left out the most important date: 1979, the year it was created (Carter administration). Its mission was to overide the authority of local school boards in all 50 states to "improve" education quality and opportunities for girls, minorities, and non-English speaking students. It's been a COMPLETE FAILURE since its existence. In fact, you can plot the begining of the downfall of American education FOR ALL CHILDREN from its creation (unless your definition of success is fugly blue-haired teachers convincing illiterate prepubescent kids they were born in the wrong body and that all white people are evil).
It was a payoff by Carter for the union support that helped get him elected. They’ve certainly added no value, as school scores have declined ever since.
Yep, I agree about including the inception date and data. There was opposition to the creation of the DOE. 1979 was the start of the timeline, it should be in there. Of course the article is about the demolition of the DOE, but really the timeline should start with the creation and reference those opposed. Some legislators in Congress opposed the bill as more bureaucracy. It wasn't a slam dunk bi-partisan bill.
In my experience with two teenage children in public school, opportunities for girls have exploded. Unfortunately, those advancements came by diverting 90%+ funding to girls and girls alone. Education approach and classroom expectations have become feminized and meet the needs of girls, but not boys... and you're called a misogynist for calling it out. There's a reason that the vast majority of high school valedictorians these days are girls. I don't understand why we can't focus on the advancement of girls and boys.
I don't pretend to know what the ripple effects of (mostly) shutting down the DOE will be, but Becky Pringle can go play in an industrial microwave.
The first 9 years of my wife’s teaching career she taught in autistic support and life skills classrooms at the elementary and middle school levels. I cannot describe the frustration I experienced watching her suffer in order to do her job in these contexts. My wife came home most days covered in scratches, cuts and bruises with mountains of paperwork to do after school hours. The paraprofessional staff the district hired were all warm bodies off the street, and while a few turned out to be hardworking people dedicated to the students, many turned out to be people my wife had to babysit in addition to the students she was responsible for. She’s been sucker punched by students, kicked, struck with chairs and desks, and attacked by a linebacker sized middle schooler when she was 8 months pregnant. (There was another adult to intervene before she or the baby was hurt.) No thought or care was given by her administrative staff or district HR about the danger posed to her or her staff by the minority of violent, unpredictable students in their program. Nothing was done about that fact that these very disruptive students were ruining the education of their classmates by directing the time and attention of their teachers and most competent para staff away from the students with potential to make academic and social progress.
My wife’s local union reps were useless. They freaked out if teachers didn’t get their contracted planning time during the school day, but had no idea how to advocate for a teacher who suffered abuse at the hands of students. (And I stand by the use of the word abuse. If I treated my wife the way her worst students treated her year after year, they’d rightly call it domestic abuse and lock me up.) Surely the NEA is doing something about this, right? Sadly, no. A simple google search exposes the trauma public school teachers of special needs children are expected to endure in the name of public education. Yet, nothing on the NEA website at the time, or their magazine periodical acknowledged this. Instead, I learned all about the NEA's abortion advocacy, the virtues of gender-affirming classroom practices, book recommendations for young children with gender-neutral characters, and the mortal evils of mildly offensive school mascots. Call me old fashioned, but isn’t the primary function of a labor union supposed to be to advocate for the proper treatment and working conditions of its members? The NEA gave up this mantle a long time ago. Nothing in Becky Pringle’s statement has anything to do with how abolishing the DOE would affect actual teachers.
If you’re in education and are a member of the NEA, and if you have reservations about woke politics, I’d advise you to consider leaving. Stop paying dues to an organization that has lost sight of its true mission and devolved into a left wing lobbying organization. There are other teacher advocacy groups that will give you legal protection. Many of them ask for less of your money than the NEA does.
If you’re the parent of a special needs child in a public school, don’t just assume your kid is getting a great education. Volunteer in your student’s classroom during the school day once every month or two to keep an eye on how things are run. Support and encourage your kid’s teachers and para staff. Insist that your child be kept safe from unpredictable and wantonly violent students. If enough parents do this, school administrators will start picking up their feet and moving extreme behavior cases in school placements better equipped to handle such behavior.
Our state's largest school district has cut their suspension rate significantly, because trying to deal with wantonly violent students gets you the 'racist' label.
There's a real hesitation to appear persecutorial to any marginalized group (racial minority, special needs, physically disabled, etc.) Going the extra mile for disadvantaged students is laudable, but this must be held in balance with teachers' workplace rights and the safety and educational opportunities of other students.
Becky "WE ARE THE NEA!!" Pringle is a crazy person and anything she's against is probably good. Teachers' unions are ass cancer on the political system and they have hurt kids far more than these DoE cuts ever could.
The real dismantling of DOE is not so much in administration/staff, as they only have a few thousand employees (aka money launderers). As you noted David, it's in stopping that wasteful flow of money.
Very interesting. Can you supply a reference for that info? I tried looking and came up with this (for 2024), which shows ~ 60% going to Fed financial aid:
Yup. I've got a bright kid. 4.4 gpa. He was offered a 6k/year scholarship from UC-Boulder. Sounds great, right? The problem is that he is out of state and the all in price for out of state students at that school is 68k. 62k/year is absurd for a public school. UW-Madison is pulling the same garbage.
These schools with administrative bloat need to be cracked across the face by the feds.
I believe it went to elect more democrats to keep the money flowing into jobs for administration buddies rather than teachers or students. It is all a grifting buddy system.
The DOE is a bloated agency that could disappear tomorrow and no one would notice. All the usual tricks, especially the "But what about the children??!!" are being trotted out by the usual suspects. Weingarten used to travel through NYC in a chauffeured SUV, all the while 'fighting poverty' and 'helping the children'. It was truly gross. I see not much has changed.
The crazy thing about Weingarten is that she is willing to show her face despite the decades of FAILURE that she has personally overseen. Her continued presence as the leader of the teachers union is a double down on failure and evidence of a literal FEIFDOM that she commands. I think how she retains control of that union would be a story all to itself. Like all bloated bureaucracy's, they inhibit innovation. See Boeing stranding astronauts being rescued by a come from nowhere company that today launches 90% of the payload going into earth orbit. See every government agency staffed by lifers who bring little to the table other than entrenchment.
I remember, after some Rs questioned her level of concern for kids given that she isn't actually a mother, the Dems falling over themselves praising her motherhood skills (she's stepmom to her wife's adult kids).
Screeches of outrage because Trump dares to try to dismantle this colossal failure? How is this difficult to understand? The federal Dept. of Ed has presided over abject failure on multiple levels. US students badly lag their foreign counterparts in math, science and literacy. The student loan program is riddled with defaults and non-payment with few controls. And since it began, college tuition has escalated and three times the rate of inflation. On what planet do rational people reward failure?
And as far as the hectoring harridan, the loathsome Ms. Weingarten, what has she done to earn her large salary and benefits?
Plus the AFT allegedly focuses on getting more members (in order to increase their political power) rather than on improving things for the existing ones.
I can’t say for sure, because I am not a teacher, but it seems like the younger grade levels spend time rushing through learning so they can prepare the kids for “the tests” - meaning the standardized tests. If we took more time to actually make sure the majority of kids, not just the smart ones, were actually competent and understood the material before being allowed to move onto the next level, that would be helpful. I can’t tell you how many times my kids were passed along even though I knew they didn’t have a great understanding of the material - THAT is why Harvard needs to offer remedial Algebra classes. It all catches up at some point.
Perhaps I can offer some insight. A huge part of a school administrator's career advancement opportunity comes from being able to show improved test scores. Therefore, there is an incentive to support classes that teach testable subjects (reading, writing, math.) Nothing wrong with this per se, but some administrators give undue resources to these core subjects at the expense of other important things like music, art, health, etc. I knew a band director who had his band room commandeered by his principal for test prep purposes. He was expected to hold band rehearsal in the cafeteria during lunch.
Some administrators are able to balance their leadership of all subject areas with career aspirations. Others sell the farm in order to raise test scores.
Studies have shown that students heavily involved in activities like band have higher academic achievement on average. Hurting the development of well-rounded students hurts them on all fronts.
"Teaching to the test" isn't so terrible anyway, if it's a good test like an AP. I suspect the real problem some have with testing is that measuring and quantifying performance might possibly lead to accountability.
I usually hear the argument that schools can't provide these programs because of budget cuts. But we had all of these when we were kids....so what has changed.
We have schools with hydroponics labs and planetariums too, but no drafting tables, sewing machines or woodshops anymore....
I was for the most part a C- D+ student but that was before the creation of DOE. I struggled with academic education all the way into my mid thirties. I even got a shot a Cornell after serving in the Peace Corps. We have to stop placing all the emphasis on formal education and start recognizing learning in the work space. The monoply on degrees held by insitutions of higher education has to be challenged. Start offering business a government subsidy for training. Set up test sites that pop up when a registered number of works are ready to be tested, easily done using the internet. This isn't an orginal idea by me. This is something that has been studied.
I was always a good student. The fundamentals of education, math and language skills are indispensable. But I believe that apprenticeship programs are completely underrated. Skills learning from a master is one of the most rewarding things I've ever experienced, and I learned so many concepts so quickly. For me, being able to apply the instruction in a practical way is so rewarding. We should be doing more of that, the kind of learning which Mike Rowe promotes. We all don't need to be math majors.
I actually went to a post college program to learn my career - interior design. I liked the way the school was set up because it was based on the way architecture and design was always taught - in the field on the job. So you were required to have a part or full time job while going to school at night. Perfect for me looking to pay the rent, keep the cost of education low and learn a career that I didn't pursue in college. I'm not sure there is one job that can be learned in a classroom; the actual work experience teaches us far more.
I wonder if there is a single agency that the dems are in favor of cutting, and reducing waste and corruption. How is it possible that we are not united in wanting to reduce the 35T or more debt we have, of which the biggest line item is interest expense. How are we not united against torching Teslas? What am I missing?
At least Trump et al are doing more than paying lip service to cutting the debt. But they are fighting a losing battle. To do that they have to STOP the deficit. Immediate freeze on all spending, including military, no COLAs for social security, no new hires, until the deficit is cured. Assuming no tax increases, hold all spending at current real levels and grow the economy at a +3% rate and we will start to shrink the deficit and eventually the debt. But neither party has the courage to go that far. So the best we can hope for is token cost cutting (see USAID), real economic growth and shrinking the deficit. There is no good end to this problem without drastic action.
And the DOD can't pass an audit or account for what, a trillion dollars? Now billions more have been blown in Ukraine--or into the pockets of our defense contractors. I'll take DOGE seriously when it goes after the DOD.
100% on "real" economic growth as the solution as opposed to deficit spending (which should be a crime, at this point). But in defense of Soc Security recipients/participants, who are being victimized by the biggest involuntary "pyramid" scheme in history, some form of privatization could fix that problem without capping benefits. While we're at it, we need to get the government out of health care. Retirement planning and health care are not among the enumerated powers of the federal government. I checked twice.
"Some form of privatization" will likely turn into a Wall Street scam to milk the SS trust fund for fees. The Republicans have been hungering to do that for at least 20 years.
RE: COLAs for SS. I could support debating the capping or eliminating COLAs based upon annual earnings. There are many lower-income retirees who rely heavily on SS, and many who don't.
Tesla didn't put us in 35 trillion debt. Why are you not advocating torching the government? How about I get a bunch of my comrades and come to your house and burn it down? You have insurance don't you?
Should everyone who gets tax incentives be burned to the ground? Should we start derailing trains because Warren Buffet gets tax incentives? Should we blow up solar panels and wind turbines because they are subsidized by our taxes? As we have seen with USAID nearly everyone is getting screwed.
The DoD, the one that's on the most solid Constitutional ground. And unlike "mandatory" social spending, defense programs actually do get cut sometimes.
As a parent of 2 dyslexic public school kids who learned to read because we had the $ to pay for outside instruction in the science of reading, I know for a fact that America's education system is broken. The teacher's union, and their detailed Contracts, exist for the rights of teachers. Nothing in a teacher's contract addresses the wants of parents or the needs of their children--that is not the Teacher's Union's job. If parents can't fund the reading instruction that their struggling kids need, they are simply doomed. There's a reason only about 35% of America's kids can read proficienty by 4th grade. Lots of Union rules like LIFO and explicit requirements NOT to make veteran teachers get updated training in the science of reading means that kids just have more of the same, year after year. The US Department of Ed is a meal ticket for Teacher's Union but it does nothing for parents, except abandon their children and take and misuse tax dollars.
School is not a substitute for parents teaching their kids.
And a teacher's union isn't going to have contract line items for parents. The PTA is the first place I'd look for a collective parental voice about your local education situation.
So you're telling the people who go to school for years, in order to learn how to teach, are not the people responsible for teaching our kids. What exactly is their job than?
Drew seems to be pointing to the larger social-economic failure outside the schools which sends confused, immature kids into those prison-like institutions and expects miracles to come out.
I substitute-taught in the late '70s and again thirty years later in rural Iowa schools. When I was in school myself, Iowa was consistently ranked as in the top three school systems in the nation. Since then it has plummeted.
When I returned to sub in 2008, '09, and 2010 the discipline problems were completely out of hand. I quickly joined the Iowa NEA for legal protection. I needed it. A 200-pound student swung on me with a plastic baseball bat. I took him down and put him safely on the floor. I got fired and then investigated and interviewed by the sheriff's department due to his guardian's complaint.
A few years later I met the grown kid. He was very apologetic and respectful. I had actually provided the masculine boundary he was testing himself against since his father had committed suicide.
Education is a complex fucking issue, both on the macro and micro levels.
People who think we’re going to get the miracles you speak of by pursuing school choice (privatization) and abolishing the Ed Dept are ideological fools.
I agree, and I think it’s a good start. It will also bring to the forefront, the differences in each state. I know CA has ranked near or at the bottom for several years now and maybe being in full control of their own destiny without the federal government to blame will serve as a wake up call for some in the state to do something about the problem. I’m going to remain hopeful for now. At least some action is being taken. The saying, “do something even if it’s wrong “, may apply here. Plus there’s the added benefit of reducing federal bloat and saving money. If you want an excellent masterclass on the debt, deficit, and economic planning, I highly recommend the All In podcast interview by David Freidburg and Chamath Palihapitiya(sp?), where they interview Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
That's not fair. Public education as an institution has some problems, but most teachers are doing their best by their students. You can oppose Vietnam without spitting on vets.
THey are not the only people who's job entails training young people to be successful adults. In fact less than 14% of a child's time is spent in school.
The PTA cannot compete with the Teacher's Union Contract. It's like spitting in the wind. And most local BOE's are controlled by the Teacher's Unions. Explain why 35% +/- of America's kids can't read at grade level by 4th if the PTA was all it took
Seems odd that you'd have to go outside your district merely for remedial classes related to dyslexia. You can hold your district's feet to the fire on this, especially if your kids have an IEP. Most states have advocacy resources parents can tap into to help them in these matters.
I can comment based on my sister’s experiences as a teacher in CA public schools. There are resources but unfortunately the process for getting them takes at least half of the school year and that’s if you’re on top of it as a teacher. A bunch of specialists have to evaluate the child, write reports, and the teacher has to go over the results with the parents who have to consent. Generally all of this, if you’re a squeaky wheel, takes until Christmas break, and then maybe upon returning to school in January, the student might have some assistance. Parents with means aren’t going to wait around for that. In addition the student may need supplemental help beyond what the school provides. Also, a multi pronged approach, depending on the diagnosis, may be beneficial for some, which includes occupational therapy, nutritional counseling, behavioral therapy, and physical education. The school cannot provide all of that in every case.
An IEP is only as good as the parent's pocket is deep. An IEP, to be effective, needs what the Teachers Unions have, ie, strong, detailed, trackable Contract (aka IEP) and an Special Ed attorney represenating the parent/child (paid for by the parent of course) who can make sure that the terms of the Contract/IEP, and progress happens. 'FAILURE TO PROGRESS' (but able to progress w/proper instruction) are what a parent has to prove.
If you even think the word "lawyer" in a meeting with most public school administrators, they'll usually roll over backward to accommodate your every wish and desire. Especially if said administrator is the career ladder-climbing type.
Districts are law-bound to honor IEPs and are liable to enact them day to day whether you have a lawyer or not, and you as a parent have basically all the say in terms of what goes into that document. They know you have the power in the relationship. If you insist on your way long enough, you'll almost always get it. And if your district breaks the law, you get to sue them.
Perhaps Dog Milk, you don't realize that I've been there and done this. And I have the feeling you might be an educator, or a parent who never had to do this. No, administrators don't roll over even when the parent brings an attorney. Yes, districts are bound to honor IEP's but they write lousy IEP's with weak, vague metrics for gullible parents ---unless a parent has an attorney. And yes, a very well versed, legally astute parent with gobs of time on their hands, can make sure that the IEP/Contract document is well written--but the parent will have to go to PPT meetings ad nasuem to get what they need added in--(meanwhile their kids are falling farther behind) Parents do Not have the power in the relationship. A standard PPT might have 1 or 2 parents and 7 or more teachers, support staff and administrators. A parent needs an attorney to be a co-equal player in the relationship and that is not only unfair to those parents who can't pay for lawyers, but it's also ridiculous that that's what it takes.
You as a parent have the right to reject or change pretty much anything in an IEP you don't like. So if it's a lousy IEP, read it carefully and insist that they change the lousy parts. If something is unclear to you, insist that they change the wording to make it clear. A weak IEP with vague metrics can only go into effect for your child if your signature is on it. It doesn't matter how many district employees they stuff in your meetings, the district is legally obligated to give you time to read over the IEP before you meet to ratify it, and the buck stops with you whether it goes into effect or not. Once you've got a document you're happy with, keep close tabs on day-to-day classroom activities and ask your kids teachers often how what they're teaching is moving the ball forward on those IEP initiatives.
I don't mean to belittle the efforts you've made advocating for your kids, just encouraging you to keep going! You've got more power than you think.
This will be my last reply. My children are fully grown. I know exactly what I did and how my kids came out on top. My point is the public school system is broken, ---parents who have the $$ & time succeed, but that leaves all those other millions of public school kids--the 65% not reading at grade level, failing. If a kid can't read proficiently by the end of 3rd grade, there is only a 1 in 10 chance they will ever catch up.
In what world does “tenure” make sense? Other government employees have pensions, but they are still subject to being dismissed for poor or inappropriate behavior.
The DOE proposes an expansion of Title IX to include LGBT students, outraging many conservative critics of the agency. Revised changes took effect last April, but were ultimately struck down."
Matt, do you think this section might need some work? The issue conservatives and many others had with this law is that appeared to allow transgender women access to women's sports, locker rooms, and bathrooms. In other words, the issue is with the T, not the LGB. These are very serious issues.
Second, the references don't really flesh out the conservative position on this at all, and I'm not sure it's fair to call the issue conservative when this is an 80-20 issue.
Googling on the issue was not easy, but I found the following. Megyn Kelly's podcasts describe the issue in great detail. She's discussed how these regulations took Title IX, which was supposed to protect women, and extended them to men, thus defeating the original purpose of the regulations. After all, how can you be protecting women when you are forcing them to get dressed in front of men, then sending them off to have their jaws broken in games, as happened in one town in MA.
Perhaps you could talk to Megyn's producers about sources, but generally, it's hard to write a timeline about a story that you haven't covered or followed closely yourself because the sources are hard to find. It might be worthwhile to involve others directly, especially those with views outside the world of The Propaganda. Here that might be Megyn and also Wesley Yang.
More generally, these timelines may only work if you do them in consultation with the people whose views are left off Google.
Hi Christine, I think you make some good points. I've updated that section. I've also provided documents of the 2022 proposed rule, the 2024 final rule, and the order that struck it down. Thanks for your feedback.
I was teacher when Jimmy Carter created the DoE. I predicted that the DoE would become a bureaucratic boondoggle that did more harm than good. I was right.
my mom was a hard working teacher starting in 1973. by the late seventies she was already noticing that administrative bloat was skyrocketing. and great teachers were getting pushed and pushed around by domineering administrators.
Government over the long term is incapable of becoming anything other than a boondoggle. There is little to no reason for it not to and the incentives drive it continuously in that direction.
This is all wonderful and I support it, but remember as we "return education to the states" that the state departments of education are all staffed and run by the same sort of dunderheads malpracticing in Washington.
Indeed. There is no substitute for parental involvement. Your local PTA needs you. One of my friends was involved in a local school and helped put together a program where this middle school actually built a satellite that was launched into orbit for a few years. THIS is what is possible when you engage.
I went to a PTA meeting once and sat through almost 2 hours of "how can we level the playing field for class parties, when some classes have parents who go all out and some classes had store-bought cookies and punch?" Some moms actually cried. The upshot was snacks had to come from an approved list so everyone got a crappy party. This was my last PTA meeting.
I think it’s apparent that the DOE has not fulfilled its duties to improve the educational needs of our children. It’s to me, like having a democratic PAC inside the white house agencies. During COVID, how they treated our children, was the absolute turning point for me. I’m grateful to live in a state(FL) that has passed school choice, for my grandchildren. The fact that we’ve dropped to the 40th ranking among developed countries is embarrassing. We are graduating students unprepared. No wonder they need to further their education by going to college. The anti closure folks, keep talking about the rich being rewarded. Well, the rich already pay extra to educate their kids by sending them to private school etc. What about the poor? They have no alternatives. Something needs to change. With the DOE gone, the locals will have no one to blame when the parents come screaming .
40th ranking after spending more money than anyone else. At some point you need to try something different.
I agree with everything Marie says. However, the latest PISA scores I found showed us ranked #18. That’s great for a middling country but nowhere near where we need to be. In my view, U.S. education is a tale of two systems. Many elite schools often in suburban areas where parents demand rigor are pretty good - maybe top 10 on a standalone basis. But inner city urban schools are often an unmitigated disaster, and they are creating a permanent underclass that is increasingly dependent on government largesse. The vast majority (70-80%) of inner city parents want reform or school choice, but get neither. The unions are too powerful, and they fund the party that protects them from reform.
That's been our experience. According to this, 47% of California 8th graders can read and write at grade level or above and only 35% can perform math by those same metrics. This is what systemic failure looks like by the numbers.
https://caaspp-elpac.ets.org/caaspp/DashViewReportSB?ps=true&lstTestYear=2024&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=1&lstSubGroup=1&lstSchoolType=A&lstGrade=13&lstCounty=00&lstDistrict=00000&lstSchool=0000000
That’s odd, because all I hear from that state is that everyone else is way behind them in terms of educating their youth. I swear we should rename the state of California to the state of Denial.
That was true decades ago, but due to mismanagement, corruption (google billion dollar ipad scandal) and unions protecting bad teachers, CA schools are on average a trash heap.
And Gavin Newsom has been a disaster on every front. Worst governor in that State’s history.
I agree with you about the impact of the unions - look at Chicago public education. You would be surprised how many upper middle class schools in the suburbs also graduate poorly educated kids. Its atrocious. Bringing accountability to local level is a necessary step in the right direction.
My kids go to a small, rural school. It is abysmal. I don't think we have the mass chaos that I read about in inner city schools. However, academic rigor is discouraged. Students are literally not allowed to fail the first quarter. All resources are directed at the lowest performing students (fine for them to get their needs addressed, but how as a society do we expect to survive if we don't also foster the needs of our highest performers?). Money is spent on adult "outreach". I kid you not, we have children who can't read and children crying out for more advanced coursework and the district spends money on such programs as christmas basket making (I took this class and while it was fun, I don't see how it meets the mission of educating our children), fly fishing (for adults), and yoga (also for adults). Oh and they tore down the basketball court on school property and built a food bank. While a food bank is nice for the community, I strongly feel that they should not have taken the kid's basketball court away. The entire priority system is screwed up and our kids suffer for it.
At any rate, the kids with means are sent to boarding school or the nearby private school. The rest languish in a system that has no interest in them.
How sad. Education is our country's future!
> improve the educational needs of our children
Improve their needs? Let's not.
> we’ve dropped to the 40th ranking among developed countries is embarrassing
The US has. And FL is #20 among us.
https://www.clickorlando.com/features/2025/02/11/these-are-the-most-least-educated-states-how-did-florida-rank/
> We are graduating students unprepared. No wonder they need to further their education by going to college.
I think that's better explained if you follow the money.
Recent stories of 2 students (CT and TN) suing (or won a suit against) school districts for graduating them while they are functional illiterates. The CT student graduated as a 3.4 GPA honors student now enrolled with scholarship at UConn! And read yesterday that Harvard (who only admits 4% of applicants and holds itself as extremely selective) is having to provide significant numbers of remedial math classes as many students can’t handle basic algebra!
But look more deeply at the ranking methodology. 60% of score is based on adults 25+ holding some college education or at least a high school diploma. And many of the top states’ high ranking is due to the amount and quality of their post-high school educational facilities. In no way am I down-playing that factor, but the focus we need is not on post-high school, our universities have the funds and ability to provide that. We must focus on the K-12 levels and we tend to do a poor job of managing that. I agree, return the monies and accountability to the locals.
Our kids aren't being well educated! Let's cut funding, and that will fix everything!
Btw- these illiterate students... Were 100% of them athletes given a few ride so their colleges can exploit them for the hundreds of millions of dollars college sports generates? Or was it only 99%?
I would say that cutting education funding is probably not going to solve that problem.
Those that weren't college athletes being explored, did they grow up underfunded schools and had lost teachers working for peanuts without enough schoolbooks and resources?
Cutting funding probably isn't going to solve those problems either.
Teaching kids that the world was made by an angry magical psychopath who entertains himself by creating a horrible world, dropping us into it, and then torturing us for all eternity for failing... Well, that isn't going to help either.
I have not read anywhere that there is a proposal or advocacy to cut funding to the schools but to return K-12 monies back to the States rather than be distributed/managed by some monolithic bureaucracy more focused on funding administrative and social goals than education. No, these two were not athletes, just everyday students- one in an urban system one in a suburban system. But you bring up a good point - with the amounts of dollars pushed through the DoE, how could ANY public school system possibly be underfunded? (Chicago Public Schools receive the highest per student funding in the nation, yet fail miserably at their most basic and primary task of educating students.) But one commonality in both was the effort to push through students to meet “success goals” rather than delaying their grade advancements to be sure that they received a proper education.
God almighty, could an online conversation be leading two people who disagree with each other closer to a mutual understanding?
Maybe we should move the argument to something stupid and meaningless!
Can you post some links? I'd like to read what you are talking about.
Maybe you should find your OWN information. But wait! You've already failed miserably at that. Forget it.
I'm as confused as you are.
I'm in Chicago. My kids go to Chicago Public Schools. Online learning was horrible, but it hurt the lowest performers a lot harder than the upper class.
That said outside of the pandemic ... Chicago has some of the top performing Schools in the Nation. Payton is #5 in the country, #1 in Illinois. Northside is #35 in the US, #2 in the state, and Whitney is #52 in the US, #3 in the state. The kids that go to these schools receive a very classical education. Lots of Shakespeare and most have already passed Algebra by 8th grade (Which is apparently not true of all Harvard Freshman anymore.)
We have a lot of kids from families who don't care about education, or don't know how to support their children even if they have an idea that education is important. One of the reasons we pay so much is because of 1) pension costs. 2) We have a lot of buildings that aren't even half full that are expensive to maintain.
School choice gives parents who give a damn a chance to get their kids out of failing neighborhood schools ... but try closing those neighborhood schools and you're called a racist.
Needs to be said that in most red states, that public money would almost certainly go into violating people first amendment rights to not be religiously indoctrinated.
Of course, those people will be outraged when those funds go into finding the WRONG religions.
Pretty sure that the people who want to teach that "physics is Jesus magic" aren't going to be cool with other publicly funded schools teaching, say, "physics is Allah magic".
But for some, the First Amendment means they have the freedom to indoctrinate people in their own particular brand of superstition while stamping out other, competing myths.
Such a deep and subtle understanding of Christianity is, no doubt, at least partially attributable to your excellent public education, at the hands of militant secularists who would drive The Trinitarian God from our classrooms and replace Him with the angry chaos monkey deity of Darwin and Marx. We're not having that anymore, nor should we be financing it with our taxes, or supporting it with our laws.
Got to love that angry chaos monkey.
I received my religious education in church, actually.
Fortunately for me, I realized that magic isn't real at a young age.
And yet the day may still come when in a flash of awareness, seemingly out of nowhere, you realize that it is all REAL and TRUE after all! It is not unknown that some of God's chosen are from among his most adamant opponents, at first.
The idea is not to cut funding for education, but for the bureaucracy by sending the money to the states, who understand better how to spend it for their population.
Maybe I would buy that if, seemingly, 100% of the people that want this are Jesus freaks.
Oh, and lazy oligarchs that know their failchildren would never be able to hold onto their inherited wealth if there was actual competition.
An immensely unintelligent comment. It makes no point, offers no insight nor asks no questions.
There is no "cutting teaching funds".
If the bureaucrats who introduced whole language reading method are sent packing and schools return to phonetics and reading for fun would go a long way to helping all children.
The whole Mantra you are spouting does nothing but feed division.
All I can do is stare at this comment saying that cutting funding to education is not cutting funds to education.
Jesus.
Stanley, perhaps you could or should educate yourself how public education was funded prior to 1979.
Again, not cutting funds to EDUCATION.
More funds would end up going to classroom.
Just because your brain trust AOC, Schumer and Sanders say so doesn't make it so.
Jesus indeed.
Stanley,
curious where you got your moniker, TwoBrix. Or is it "BoxoRox"?
(btw Brix is a viticultural term, to measure sugar content in grapes prior to harvesting into wine production??)
you are free to comment as you see fit but take the feedback as well.
as one said, there has not been a determination of cutting funding for students, but likely for much of the 5000 administrative heads that are on payroll. Sure dont need 90% of this "overhead' that got us to #40 in education ranking. Not being top 10 is not acceptable to me.
I feel Trump and his team will spread/share the monies "per capita/student" fairly, and we see how the students perform in a couple years.
school choice will certainly bring in some religious groups, and that is a parents choice to send their child there, or not.
(I do feel public schools need to recognize religion (cover a reasonable range here) in teaching our kids, as well as the theory of evolution. btw, Physics is Physics, just like men are men, and women are women).
it seems the bone you are picking is re TRump, not really the DOE being shuttered one day.
take care
Just out of curiosity, how are schools funded in your state? Teacher salaries, supplies, and other resources are funded by local tax payer dollars in the state I live in. The biggest city in my state has the highest amount spent per student and it the biggest failure when it comes to student performance. It is also one of the highest paid districts for teachers. The DOE has no direct influence on the performance and funding of these schools. If what I understand is correct, the DOE will continue to pay Title 1 funds to the states, so money used at the local level from federal dollars would continue. I honestly don't think funding is insufficient, it is just used incorrectly. Also, I live in a deep blue state. Would love to learn how funding is done in your state.
You have to be careful when using the word "cutting". Democrats love to play this game (this is a hypothetical): 2020 budget for widgets was $1 billion. 2020 spending for widgets was $1.3 billion (over budget - shockiing!!). 2021 PROPOSED budget for widgets is $1.5 billion. Congress passes spending bill allocating $1.4 billion for widgets. That amount is 40% MORE than 2020 budget and 7% more than 2020 SPENDING for widgets. But because the budget proposal was for $1.5 billion, Democrats claim "GOP SLASHES funding....". It's a stupid game played viciously and relentlessly by the left.
Now - will "cutting education funding" solve the problem of a nation of failing and functionally illiterate students? NO. But will re-allocating some of the money that is cut toward actually EDUCATING those students help? It sure is worth a try, because nothing the Dept. of Education has done for 40+ years has improved education - including No Child Left Behind, a Bush II initiative. All we have done is pour billions upon billions of dollars into a bottomless cavern of woke.
If Harvard needs to offer remedial math classes, how did the students get admitted? Or is DEI replacing GPA as the metric to review?
I think most colleges stopped requiring SAT scores for admission. and SAT continued to reduce the testing stadards for previous years, before that. All in the name of EQUITY. "Not fair" to require a black student and a white student to answer the same math problem, or logic question etc.
also, I think many admissions are based on a prospective student securing funding that is most favorable to the college.
I SO agree.....if the DOE had ever done anything to improve results, I could vigorously defend reforming and streamlining it. But it seems like comparing the $25k per year per K-12 student cost vs. the results makes it perfectly obvious that taxpayers are not getting even a mediocre return on the investment. Taking it beyond K-12, why in the world does College cost $25k or more per year? Because schools all the way from K through Grad School are top-heavy with admininstrators Many school districts have MORE "Admin" staff than teachers. And the teachers get the low end of the pay scales. It's simply obscene. Let each State figure out how best to spend tax dollars to achieve better-educated students.
You left out the most important date: 1979, the year it was created (Carter administration). Its mission was to overide the authority of local school boards in all 50 states to "improve" education quality and opportunities for girls, minorities, and non-English speaking students. It's been a COMPLETE FAILURE since its existence. In fact, you can plot the begining of the downfall of American education FOR ALL CHILDREN from its creation (unless your definition of success is fugly blue-haired teachers convincing illiterate prepubescent kids they were born in the wrong body and that all white people are evil).
They also try to convince all black and brown children they're incapable of performing well.
Of course! They swapped merit-based achievement for victimhood rewards.
It was a payoff by Carter for the union support that helped get him elected. They’ve certainly added no value, as school scores have declined ever since.
Yep, I agree about including the inception date and data. There was opposition to the creation of the DOE. 1979 was the start of the timeline, it should be in there. Of course the article is about the demolition of the DOE, but really the timeline should start with the creation and reference those opposed. Some legislators in Congress opposed the bill as more bureaucracy. It wasn't a slam dunk bi-partisan bill.
Right. Otherwise people would think the DoE was there since the 19th century.
that is is excellent addition. thanks! honestly, the whole miserable affair is a complete disgrace.
In my experience with two teenage children in public school, opportunities for girls have exploded. Unfortunately, those advancements came by diverting 90%+ funding to girls and girls alone. Education approach and classroom expectations have become feminized and meet the needs of girls, but not boys... and you're called a misogynist for calling it out. There's a reason that the vast majority of high school valedictorians these days are girls. I don't understand why we can't focus on the advancement of girls and boys.
I don't pretend to know what the ripple effects of (mostly) shutting down the DOE will be, but Becky Pringle can go play in an industrial microwave.
The first 9 years of my wife’s teaching career she taught in autistic support and life skills classrooms at the elementary and middle school levels. I cannot describe the frustration I experienced watching her suffer in order to do her job in these contexts. My wife came home most days covered in scratches, cuts and bruises with mountains of paperwork to do after school hours. The paraprofessional staff the district hired were all warm bodies off the street, and while a few turned out to be hardworking people dedicated to the students, many turned out to be people my wife had to babysit in addition to the students she was responsible for. She’s been sucker punched by students, kicked, struck with chairs and desks, and attacked by a linebacker sized middle schooler when she was 8 months pregnant. (There was another adult to intervene before she or the baby was hurt.) No thought or care was given by her administrative staff or district HR about the danger posed to her or her staff by the minority of violent, unpredictable students in their program. Nothing was done about that fact that these very disruptive students were ruining the education of their classmates by directing the time and attention of their teachers and most competent para staff away from the students with potential to make academic and social progress.
My wife’s local union reps were useless. They freaked out if teachers didn’t get their contracted planning time during the school day, but had no idea how to advocate for a teacher who suffered abuse at the hands of students. (And I stand by the use of the word abuse. If I treated my wife the way her worst students treated her year after year, they’d rightly call it domestic abuse and lock me up.) Surely the NEA is doing something about this, right? Sadly, no. A simple google search exposes the trauma public school teachers of special needs children are expected to endure in the name of public education. Yet, nothing on the NEA website at the time, or their magazine periodical acknowledged this. Instead, I learned all about the NEA's abortion advocacy, the virtues of gender-affirming classroom practices, book recommendations for young children with gender-neutral characters, and the mortal evils of mildly offensive school mascots. Call me old fashioned, but isn’t the primary function of a labor union supposed to be to advocate for the proper treatment and working conditions of its members? The NEA gave up this mantle a long time ago. Nothing in Becky Pringle’s statement has anything to do with how abolishing the DOE would affect actual teachers.
If you’re in education and are a member of the NEA, and if you have reservations about woke politics, I’d advise you to consider leaving. Stop paying dues to an organization that has lost sight of its true mission and devolved into a left wing lobbying organization. There are other teacher advocacy groups that will give you legal protection. Many of them ask for less of your money than the NEA does.
If you’re the parent of a special needs child in a public school, don’t just assume your kid is getting a great education. Volunteer in your student’s classroom during the school day once every month or two to keep an eye on how things are run. Support and encourage your kid’s teachers and para staff. Insist that your child be kept safe from unpredictable and wantonly violent students. If enough parents do this, school administrators will start picking up their feet and moving extreme behavior cases in school placements better equipped to handle such behavior.
We pulled our special needs boy out of public after kindergarten for some of the same reasons and have home schooled he and his brothers since then.
Good for you. Kudos for paying attention.
Our state's largest school district has cut their suspension rate significantly, because trying to deal with wantonly violent students gets you the 'racist' label.
There's a real hesitation to appear persecutorial to any marginalized group (racial minority, special needs, physically disabled, etc.) Going the extra mile for disadvantaged students is laudable, but this must be held in balance with teachers' workplace rights and the safety and educational opportunities of other students.
Becky "WE ARE THE NEA!!" Pringle is a crazy person and anything she's against is probably good. Teachers' unions are ass cancer on the political system and they have hurt kids far more than these DoE cuts ever could.
70 % of DOE goes to Colleges.
70% of that goes to overhead.
10% of State funding comes DOE.
DOE has 100 % control of State schools.
Common Core Math ?
Could you convert that data by using the lattice method? Additionally, you need to tell us how you FEEL about each statement.
Sincerely , Randi Weingarten
🤣
The real dismantling of DOE is not so much in administration/staff, as they only have a few thousand employees (aka money launderers). As you noted David, it's in stopping that wasteful flow of money.
Very interesting. Can you supply a reference for that info? I tried looking and came up with this (for 2024), which shows ~ 60% going to Fed financial aid:
https://usafacts.org/explainers/what-does-the-us-government-do/agency/us-department-of-education/
Trump needs to tackle the student loan problem NOW.
The schools natural response will be to rasie tuition, because they can.
As long as the loan pipeline is open.
Programs like that naturally raise prices. The agricultural subsidies do the same thing.
And health care, and everything else the government touches. By definition, government (in our system) produces nothing...... pure overhead.
The existing education system hasn't done a great job teaching basic economics.
Yup. I've got a bright kid. 4.4 gpa. He was offered a 6k/year scholarship from UC-Boulder. Sounds great, right? The problem is that he is out of state and the all in price for out of state students at that school is 68k. 62k/year is absurd for a public school. UW-Madison is pulling the same garbage.
These schools with administrative bloat need to be cracked across the face by the feds.
It’s much more than just administrative bloat. Check out their endowments. Where is all THAT money going?
The endowments are non profit hedge funds
Make schools liable for not meeting certain repayment metrics.
The horror!
Reminder that DOE receives $220-$268 BILLION per year. That's 1 Trillion every 4 1/2 years. Where the hell did all that money go?
Babysitting, school lunches, and sports.
I don't see the 3 Rs
Regression, Self-Righteousness, and Randi
School lunches is the USDA.
I believe it went to elect more democrats to keep the money flowing into jobs for administration buddies rather than teachers or students. It is all a grifting buddy system.
Grant administrators.
The bureaucracy expanded to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.
$220B divided equally amongst the 99,400 K-12 public schools in the US would deliver $2.2M to each and every school. What a sad grift.
You know where it went.
The DOE is a bloated agency that could disappear tomorrow and no one would notice. All the usual tricks, especially the "But what about the children??!!" are being trotted out by the usual suspects. Weingarten used to travel through NYC in a chauffeured SUV, all the while 'fighting poverty' and 'helping the children'. It was truly gross. I see not much has changed.
The crazy thing about Weingarten is that she is willing to show her face despite the decades of FAILURE that she has personally overseen. Her continued presence as the leader of the teachers union is a double down on failure and evidence of a literal FEIFDOM that she commands. I think how she retains control of that union would be a story all to itself. Like all bloated bureaucracy's, they inhibit innovation. See Boeing stranding astronauts being rescued by a come from nowhere company that today launches 90% of the payload going into earth orbit. See every government agency staffed by lifers who bring little to the table other than entrenchment.
I remember, after some Rs questioned her level of concern for kids given that she isn't actually a mother, the Dems falling over themselves praising her motherhood skills (she's stepmom to her wife's adult kids).
Screeches of outrage because Trump dares to try to dismantle this colossal failure? How is this difficult to understand? The federal Dept. of Ed has presided over abject failure on multiple levels. US students badly lag their foreign counterparts in math, science and literacy. The student loan program is riddled with defaults and non-payment with few controls. And since it began, college tuition has escalated and three times the rate of inflation. On what planet do rational people reward failure?
And as far as the hectoring harridan, the loathsome Ms. Weingarten, what has she done to earn her large salary and benefits?
Personally stifled innovation to retain her feifdom.
Plus the AFT allegedly focuses on getting more members (in order to increase their political power) rather than on improving things for the existing ones.
I can’t say for sure, because I am not a teacher, but it seems like the younger grade levels spend time rushing through learning so they can prepare the kids for “the tests” - meaning the standardized tests. If we took more time to actually make sure the majority of kids, not just the smart ones, were actually competent and understood the material before being allowed to move onto the next level, that would be helpful. I can’t tell you how many times my kids were passed along even though I knew they didn’t have a great understanding of the material - THAT is why Harvard needs to offer remedial Algebra classes. It all catches up at some point.
Perhaps I can offer some insight. A huge part of a school administrator's career advancement opportunity comes from being able to show improved test scores. Therefore, there is an incentive to support classes that teach testable subjects (reading, writing, math.) Nothing wrong with this per se, but some administrators give undue resources to these core subjects at the expense of other important things like music, art, health, etc. I knew a band director who had his band room commandeered by his principal for test prep purposes. He was expected to hold band rehearsal in the cafeteria during lunch.
Some administrators are able to balance their leadership of all subject areas with career aspirations. Others sell the farm in order to raise test scores.
They're failing on that front, too. Test scores are in the gutter, where the Dept. of Education belongs.
Studies have shown that students heavily involved in activities like band have higher academic achievement on average. Hurting the development of well-rounded students hurts them on all fronts.
You don't need that to come from Washington DC, which spends the cost of a full orchestra to provide the equivalent of one kazoo. Next..
Agreed.
And yet test scores continue to plunge.
"Teaching to the test" isn't so terrible anyway, if it's a good test like an AP. I suspect the real problem some have with testing is that measuring and quantifying performance might possibly lead to accountability.
I usually hear the argument that schools can't provide these programs because of budget cuts. But we had all of these when we were kids....so what has changed.
We have schools with hydroponics labs and planetariums too, but no drafting tables, sewing machines or woodshops anymore....
I was for the most part a C- D+ student but that was before the creation of DOE. I struggled with academic education all the way into my mid thirties. I even got a shot a Cornell after serving in the Peace Corps. We have to stop placing all the emphasis on formal education and start recognizing learning in the work space. The monoply on degrees held by insitutions of higher education has to be challenged. Start offering business a government subsidy for training. Set up test sites that pop up when a registered number of works are ready to be tested, easily done using the internet. This isn't an orginal idea by me. This is something that has been studied.
I was always a good student. The fundamentals of education, math and language skills are indispensable. But I believe that apprenticeship programs are completely underrated. Skills learning from a master is one of the most rewarding things I've ever experienced, and I learned so many concepts so quickly. For me, being able to apply the instruction in a practical way is so rewarding. We should be doing more of that, the kind of learning which Mike Rowe promotes. We all don't need to be math majors.
I actually went to a post college program to learn my career - interior design. I liked the way the school was set up because it was based on the way architecture and design was always taught - in the field on the job. So you were required to have a part or full time job while going to school at night. Perfect for me looking to pay the rent, keep the cost of education low and learn a career that I didn't pursue in college. I'm not sure there is one job that can be learned in a classroom; the actual work experience teaches us far more.
I wonder if there is a single agency that the dems are in favor of cutting, and reducing waste and corruption. How is it possible that we are not united in wanting to reduce the 35T or more debt we have, of which the biggest line item is interest expense. How are we not united against torching Teslas? What am I missing?
At least Trump et al are doing more than paying lip service to cutting the debt. But they are fighting a losing battle. To do that they have to STOP the deficit. Immediate freeze on all spending, including military, no COLAs for social security, no new hires, until the deficit is cured. Assuming no tax increases, hold all spending at current real levels and grow the economy at a +3% rate and we will start to shrink the deficit and eventually the debt. But neither party has the courage to go that far. So the best we can hope for is token cost cutting (see USAID), real economic growth and shrinking the deficit. There is no good end to this problem without drastic action.
Military cuts have not been made yet. This needs to move to the forefront. We spend FAR too much on the military.
And the DOD can't pass an audit or account for what, a trillion dollars? Now billions more have been blown in Ukraine--or into the pockets of our defense contractors. I'll take DOGE seriously when it goes after the DOD.
100% on "real" economic growth as the solution as opposed to deficit spending (which should be a crime, at this point). But in defense of Soc Security recipients/participants, who are being victimized by the biggest involuntary "pyramid" scheme in history, some form of privatization could fix that problem without capping benefits. While we're at it, we need to get the government out of health care. Retirement planning and health care are not among the enumerated powers of the federal government. I checked twice.
"Some form of privatization" will likely turn into a Wall Street scam to milk the SS trust fund for fees. The Republicans have been hungering to do that for at least 20 years.
https://michael-hudson.com/2005/04/the-4-7-trillion-pyramid-why-social-security-wont-be-enough-to-save-wall-street/
You're probably right. The simple option of allowing employees to opt out of SS would screw the government and/or Wall Street out of that opportunity.
You go, Mr. Rat Race.
RE: COLAs for SS. I could support debating the capping or eliminating COLAs based upon annual earnings. There are many lower-income retirees who rely heavily on SS, and many who don't.
Tesla didn't put us in 35 trillion debt. Why are you not advocating torching the government? How about I get a bunch of my comrades and come to your house and burn it down? You have insurance don't you?
Tesla didn't, but the DEMOCRATS who put the tax incentives in place to reward people rich enough to buy Teslas didn't help.
Should everyone who gets tax incentives be burned to the ground? Should we start derailing trains because Warren Buffet gets tax incentives? Should we blow up solar panels and wind turbines because they are subsidized by our taxes? As we have seen with USAID nearly everyone is getting screwed.
You are not a leftist apparently since doubling down on feel good failure isn't part of your skillset.
The DoD, the one that's on the most solid Constitutional ground. And unlike "mandatory" social spending, defense programs actually do get cut sometimes.
As a parent of 2 dyslexic public school kids who learned to read because we had the $ to pay for outside instruction in the science of reading, I know for a fact that America's education system is broken. The teacher's union, and their detailed Contracts, exist for the rights of teachers. Nothing in a teacher's contract addresses the wants of parents or the needs of their children--that is not the Teacher's Union's job. If parents can't fund the reading instruction that their struggling kids need, they are simply doomed. There's a reason only about 35% of America's kids can read proficienty by 4th grade. Lots of Union rules like LIFO and explicit requirements NOT to make veteran teachers get updated training in the science of reading means that kids just have more of the same, year after year. The US Department of Ed is a meal ticket for Teacher's Union but it does nothing for parents, except abandon their children and take and misuse tax dollars.
School is not a substitute for parents teaching their kids.
And a teacher's union isn't going to have contract line items for parents. The PTA is the first place I'd look for a collective parental voice about your local education situation.
So you're telling the people who go to school for years, in order to learn how to teach, are not the people responsible for teaching our kids. What exactly is their job than?
Drew seems to be pointing to the larger social-economic failure outside the schools which sends confused, immature kids into those prison-like institutions and expects miracles to come out.
I substitute-taught in the late '70s and again thirty years later in rural Iowa schools. When I was in school myself, Iowa was consistently ranked as in the top three school systems in the nation. Since then it has plummeted.
When I returned to sub in 2008, '09, and 2010 the discipline problems were completely out of hand. I quickly joined the Iowa NEA for legal protection. I needed it. A 200-pound student swung on me with a plastic baseball bat. I took him down and put him safely on the floor. I got fired and then investigated and interviewed by the sheriff's department due to his guardian's complaint.
A few years later I met the grown kid. He was very apologetic and respectful. I had actually provided the masculine boundary he was testing himself against since his father had committed suicide.
Education is a complex fucking issue, both on the macro and micro levels.
People who think we’re going to get the miracles you speak of by pursuing school choice (privatization) and abolishing the Ed Dept are ideological fools.
I agree, and I think it’s a good start. It will also bring to the forefront, the differences in each state. I know CA has ranked near or at the bottom for several years now and maybe being in full control of their own destiny without the federal government to blame will serve as a wake up call for some in the state to do something about the problem. I’m going to remain hopeful for now. At least some action is being taken. The saying, “do something even if it’s wrong “, may apply here. Plus there’s the added benefit of reducing federal bloat and saving money. If you want an excellent masterclass on the debt, deficit, and economic planning, I highly recommend the All In podcast interview by David Freidburg and Chamath Palihapitiya(sp?), where they interview Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
A very good point. Unfortunately, you are talking to a moron.
Yes, but unfortunately that privatization is going on apace in Iowa schools.
Indoctrination.
That's not fair. Public education as an institution has some problems, but most teachers are doing their best by their students. You can oppose Vietnam without spitting on vets.
Sorry, but I said nothing about spitting on vets. But my brother can tell you how many people spit on him.
I was trying to make an analogy. Sorry if it wasn't obvious.
You’re an indoctrinated idiot.
No, I graduated before the indoctrinating started. Go listen to MSM. Dick head. Then come back and cry some more.
You’ve been indoctrinated since you heard about George Washington and the cherry tree, and were told to put on a coat so you wouldn’t catch cold.
You’re a siloed twit. Go take your indoctrination lunacy and shove it, sweetheart.
And you are a know-nothing imbecile.
DNC shock troops.
THey are not the only people who's job entails training young people to be successful adults. In fact less than 14% of a child's time is spent in school.
The PTA cannot compete with the Teacher's Union Contract. It's like spitting in the wind. And most local BOE's are controlled by the Teacher's Unions. Explain why 35% +/- of America's kids can't read at grade level by 4th if the PTA was all it took
Seems odd that you'd have to go outside your district merely for remedial classes related to dyslexia. You can hold your district's feet to the fire on this, especially if your kids have an IEP. Most states have advocacy resources parents can tap into to help them in these matters.
I can comment based on my sister’s experiences as a teacher in CA public schools. There are resources but unfortunately the process for getting them takes at least half of the school year and that’s if you’re on top of it as a teacher. A bunch of specialists have to evaluate the child, write reports, and the teacher has to go over the results with the parents who have to consent. Generally all of this, if you’re a squeaky wheel, takes until Christmas break, and then maybe upon returning to school in January, the student might have some assistance. Parents with means aren’t going to wait around for that. In addition the student may need supplemental help beyond what the school provides. Also, a multi pronged approach, depending on the diagnosis, may be beneficial for some, which includes occupational therapy, nutritional counseling, behavioral therapy, and physical education. The school cannot provide all of that in every case.
They do, but they are overtaxed typically. The IEP is a valuable tool.
An IEP is only as good as the parent's pocket is deep. An IEP, to be effective, needs what the Teachers Unions have, ie, strong, detailed, trackable Contract (aka IEP) and an Special Ed attorney represenating the parent/child (paid for by the parent of course) who can make sure that the terms of the Contract/IEP, and progress happens. 'FAILURE TO PROGRESS' (but able to progress w/proper instruction) are what a parent has to prove.
If you even think the word "lawyer" in a meeting with most public school administrators, they'll usually roll over backward to accommodate your every wish and desire. Especially if said administrator is the career ladder-climbing type.
Districts are law-bound to honor IEPs and are liable to enact them day to day whether you have a lawyer or not, and you as a parent have basically all the say in terms of what goes into that document. They know you have the power in the relationship. If you insist on your way long enough, you'll almost always get it. And if your district breaks the law, you get to sue them.
Perhaps Dog Milk, you don't realize that I've been there and done this. And I have the feeling you might be an educator, or a parent who never had to do this. No, administrators don't roll over even when the parent brings an attorney. Yes, districts are bound to honor IEP's but they write lousy IEP's with weak, vague metrics for gullible parents ---unless a parent has an attorney. And yes, a very well versed, legally astute parent with gobs of time on their hands, can make sure that the IEP/Contract document is well written--but the parent will have to go to PPT meetings ad nasuem to get what they need added in--(meanwhile their kids are falling farther behind) Parents do Not have the power in the relationship. A standard PPT might have 1 or 2 parents and 7 or more teachers, support staff and administrators. A parent needs an attorney to be a co-equal player in the relationship and that is not only unfair to those parents who can't pay for lawyers, but it's also ridiculous that that's what it takes.
You as a parent have the right to reject or change pretty much anything in an IEP you don't like. So if it's a lousy IEP, read it carefully and insist that they change the lousy parts. If something is unclear to you, insist that they change the wording to make it clear. A weak IEP with vague metrics can only go into effect for your child if your signature is on it. It doesn't matter how many district employees they stuff in your meetings, the district is legally obligated to give you time to read over the IEP before you meet to ratify it, and the buck stops with you whether it goes into effect or not. Once you've got a document you're happy with, keep close tabs on day-to-day classroom activities and ask your kids teachers often how what they're teaching is moving the ball forward on those IEP initiatives.
I don't mean to belittle the efforts you've made advocating for your kids, just encouraging you to keep going! You've got more power than you think.
This will be my last reply. My children are fully grown. I know exactly what I did and how my kids came out on top. My point is the public school system is broken, ---parents who have the $$ & time succeed, but that leaves all those other millions of public school kids--the 65% not reading at grade level, failing. If a kid can't read proficiently by the end of 3rd grade, there is only a 1 in 10 chance they will ever catch up.
In what world does “tenure” make sense? Other government employees have pensions, but they are still subject to being dismissed for poor or inappropriate behavior.
The DOE needs to remain!!!!!
Without their funding and guidance the video for “Hot For Teacher” would have had Bea Arthur in the teacher role.
On the rare occasions that teachers get laid off, the unions insist it's the young new ones first.
and Sammy Hagar instead of DLR!
HAHA just say no!
"June 23, 2022
The DOE proposes an expansion of Title IX to include LGBT students, outraging many conservative critics of the agency. Revised changes took effect last April, but were ultimately struck down."
Matt, do you think this section might need some work? The issue conservatives and many others had with this law is that appeared to allow transgender women access to women's sports, locker rooms, and bathrooms. In other words, the issue is with the T, not the LGB. These are very serious issues.
Second, the references don't really flesh out the conservative position on this at all, and I'm not sure it's fair to call the issue conservative when this is an 80-20 issue.
Googling on the issue was not easy, but I found the following. Megyn Kelly's podcasts describe the issue in great detail. She's discussed how these regulations took Title IX, which was supposed to protect women, and extended them to men, thus defeating the original purpose of the regulations. After all, how can you be protecting women when you are forcing them to get dressed in front of men, then sending them off to have their jaws broken in games, as happened in one town in MA.
Perhaps you could talk to Megyn's producers about sources, but generally, it's hard to write a timeline about a story that you haven't covered or followed closely yourself because the sources are hard to find. It might be worthwhile to involve others directly, especially those with views outside the world of The Propaganda. Here that might be Megyn and also Wesley Yang.
More generally, these timelines may only work if you do them in consultation with the people whose views are left off Google.
https://transequality.org/news/new-title-ix-rules-protect-our-trans-students
https://19thnews.org/2025/01/transgender-womens-sports-house-vote-title-ix/
Hi Christine, I think you make some good points. I've updated that section. I've also provided documents of the 2022 proposed rule, the 2024 final rule, and the order that struck it down. Thanks for your feedback.
Thanks Greg.
Algorithms are gamed to support narratives. This is why counter information is hard to find.
I like to call it The Propaganda, but yes.
I was teacher when Jimmy Carter created the DoE. I predicted that the DoE would become a bureaucratic boondoggle that did more harm than good. I was right.
my mom was a hard working teacher starting in 1973. by the late seventies she was already noticing that administrative bloat was skyrocketing. and great teachers were getting pushed and pushed around by domineering administrators.
Government over the long term is incapable of becoming anything other than a boondoggle. There is little to no reason for it not to and the incentives drive it continuously in that direction.
This is how good a job the DOE has done over the past 46 years:
"Harvard Is Now Offering Remedial Math Courses"
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/ivy-league-fatigue-harvard-now-offering-remedial-math-courses
It's also a testament to DEI.
This is all wonderful and I support it, but remember as we "return education to the states" that the state departments of education are all staffed and run by the same sort of dunderheads malpracticing in Washington.
Maybe. But it’s much much harder to support that stupidity when there’s no faceless federal agency behind you. They’ll get removed in short order
You’re a fool.
Could be. Are you perhaps a faceless federal agent for the first time in your existence now staring at unemployment? Sounds like it
I doubt you find a lot of sympathy for being laid off, punkin’, there’s too many people that work in the real world
Are you a teacher/union member? In our district parents were shocked at test scores, because everyone was getting all A's.
my wife is a teacher, and she had a parent call her to ask why the parent's child was failing...
"the fact that he's only been in class one day this semester might have something to do with it"
Indeed. There is no substitute for parental involvement. Your local PTA needs you. One of my friends was involved in a local school and helped put together a program where this middle school actually built a satellite that was launched into orbit for a few years. THIS is what is possible when you engage.
I went to a PTA meeting once and sat through almost 2 hours of "how can we level the playing field for class parties, when some classes have parents who go all out and some classes had store-bought cookies and punch?" Some moms actually cried. The upshot was snacks had to come from an approved list so everyone got a crappy party. This was my last PTA meeting.