Part I – Education. Let’s Get the Feds Out
The president-elect has promised to eliminate the federal Dept. of Education (DoED). He will not be the first to try.
It’s obviously rare to shut down a department, even more so for programs overseen by a department, however deserved shutting down might be.
While there has been a component of the government to basically keep statistics on education – that function was attached to other departments previously. It wasn’t until 1979 it became separate and headed by a member of the then President Carter’s cabinet.
Truth be told, creation of the DoED was first been proposed by the newly formed union of teachers and support staff under the name National Education Association (NEA), and President Carter wanted the endorsement of the union and its 3 million members for the 1980 re-election campaign.
Putting that aside for the moment, the DoED has exerted more and more influence over public education as time has passed. As has happened often when the feds get involved, it has increased its influence and bureaucracy over school districts in every state and community. I might add that influence is way out of proportion to the money provided by the department.
About 8% of local schools’ expenditures are federally funded, primarily via child nutrition, individuals with disabilities and Head Start programs which are administered through the Departments of Agriculture and Health & Human Services, respectively. It has provided some funds to school districts with high numbers of students in poverty. With regards to ‘civil rights,’ President Obama threatened discrimination charges against school districts where the per cent of suspensions for black kids was higher than the percentage of black students – pushing schools to adopt laxer disciplinary policies that frankly, made many schools less safe. It has also provided enforcement Title IX protections for LGBTQ students.
Along that line, a moment on redefining sex in federal law. The DoED spent the last three years trying to change the Education Amendments of 1972 to the Civil Rights Act, replacing “sex” in the law with “sexual orientation and gender identity.” Under this redefinition of sex, K-12 school officials were ‘forced’ to allow boys to use girls’ bathrooms and have boys participating on girls’ athletic teams. The new definition of sex endangers females in private spaces and robs them of hard-earned athletic achievements. Thank Allah, the courts are having none of it thus far. Neither should we.
The DoED has also whiffed on key metrics for the duration of its existence. The achievement gap between students at the highest and lowest ends of the economic scale has stayed the same for half a century.
So, what does DoED actually do? One of its major functions since Obama took over the student loan program, is to provide loans and Pell Grants to post-secondary students. The government takeover of the student loan program has only resulted in runaway inflation of the cost of attendance at college.
Its mission statement says it is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access. Its role in providing funds for high poverty area schools has not raised student achievement in those schools. It has also supported adding CRT and Project 19 to local school district curricula. Let’s face it. DoED has failed miserably to accomplish a stated mission that it doesn’t have.
Since state and local taxes are the lifeblood of the public K-12 system, DoED has no real impact but to add overhead to often already top-heavy local school administrations. Universities have also become administrative pigs with their tuitions and costs. DoED should not have more impact. But almost every school district and most colleges have put on staff to ensure ‘equal access’ for students to meet DoED requirements.
Education is not covered in the Constitution. There are those that say the 14th Amendment equal protection clause covers it. That Amendment, ratified by the states in 1868 granted citizenship and equal civil and legal rights to African Americans and slaves who had been emancipated after the American Civil War. It says nothing about education specifically. So, it’s not a Constitutional mandate. The founders saw no role for the federal government in education.
Education is the prerogative and responsibility of the states and local communities.
The DoED is a perfect example of inefficiency and waste, drowning in its own nonsense and red tape. Its full of either empty or unwanted rhetoric to support a meaningful mission that it has failed and is failing to achieve.
Goodbye and good riddance.
The new administration can also eliminate the Departments of Commerce and Energy while it’s cutting the size and influence of our federal government.
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Have a great and prosperous week.
Hug somebody.
References:
https://reason.com/2017/02/07/department-of-education-jimmy-carter/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Education_Association
https://www.publicschoolreview.com/blog/an-overview-of-the-funding-of-public-schools
