A Flunking Grade for the Department of Education

July 24, 2022 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

Whether I’m debating the quality of government schools or the funding of government schools, I routinely share this chart from the late Andrew Coulson.

 

There are two obvious takeaways from this data.

1. Taxpayers have been shelling out ever-larger amounts of money.
2. All that money has produced no improvement in student test scores.

Those two takeaways should lead any rational person to conclude that dramatic changes are needed.

Probably the biggest change is school choice. And the good news is that more and more states are moving in the right direction on this issue.

But there’s another potential big change. As illustrated by this tweet (and this story), a former Secretary of the Department of Education thinks it is time to abolish her former bureaucracy.

Unfortunately, we are not seeing any progress on this goal. The bureaucracy’s budget grew dramatically under Trump. And it’s getting even more bloated under Biden.

But maybe there’s hope. Congressman Tom Massie, a libertarian-leaning Republican from Kentucky, has legislation to get the federal government out of education. Here’s some of his office’s press release on the topic.

Representative Thomas Massie…has introduced H.R. 899, a bill to abolish the federal Department of Education. The bill, which is one sentence long, states, “The Department of Education shall terminate on December 31, 2022.” …said Massie. “States and local communities are best positioned to shape curricula that meet the needs of their students. Schools should be accountable. Parents have the right to choose the most appropriate educational opportunity for their children, including home school, public school, or private school.” The Department of Education began operating in 1980. On September 24, 1981, in his Address to the Nation on the Program for Economic Recovery, President Ronald Reagan said, “…we propose to dismantle two Cabinet Departments, Energy and Education. …There’s only one way to shrink the size and cost of big government, and that is by eliminating agencies that are not needed and are getting in the way of a solution. …education is the principal responsibility of local school systems, teachers, parents, citizen boards, and State governments. By eliminating the Department of Education less than 2 years after it was created, we cannot only reduce the budget but ensure that local needs and preferences, rather than the wishes of Washington, determine the education of our children.”

In a column for the Foundation for Economic Education, Patrick Carroll applauds Congressman Massie, along with his cosponsors who have embraced genuine reform.

Though it may be tempting to think Massie and his supporters just don’t care about education, this is certainly not the case. If anything, they are pushing to end the federal Department of Education precisely because they care about educational outcomes. In their view, the Department is at best not helping and, at worst, may actually be part of the problem. …Massie is echoing sentiments expressed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, who advocated dismantling the Department of Education even though it had just begun operating in 1980. …Education needs vary from student to student, so educational decisions need to be made as close to the individual student as possible. Federal organizations simply can’t account for the diverse array of educational contexts, which means their one-size-fits-all findings and recommendations will be poorly suited for many classrooms.

Amen.

From the moment it was created by Jimmy Carter, the Department of Education has failed to generate  any positive outcome.

By that metric, it has something in common with the Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture, Department of Transportation, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and almost every bureaucracy in Washington.

P.S. As one might expect, Bush’s No Child Left Behind and Obama’s Common Core were both expensive failures.

Former Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos Calls to Abolish Department of Education

Paul Bois 17 Jul 2022

Betsy DeVos, who served as the U.S. Secretary of Education under former President Donald Trump, has called for the abolishment of the Department of Education.  Speaking at the “Moms for Liberty” summit, DeVos said the federal government should be removed from education, leaving it to state and local governments. “I personally think the Department of Education should not exist,” said DeVos, prompting a loud standing ovation from members of the audience, according to Florida Phoenix.  Though DeVos acknowledged the good that teachers serve, including those in attendance at the summit, she blasted teachers unions as a “K-12 cartel.”.........To Read More.....

Soviet Show Trials come to American college campuses

June 28, 2022 By Edward E. Bartlett

Modern-day historians look back at the Soviet criminal system with a mixture of sorrow and disbelief.  For example, Lavrentiy Beria, head of Stalin's secret police, often boasted, "Show me the man, and I'll show you the crime."  Beria was bragging that he possessed a fearsome array of tools that could banish any political opponent to the gulag.  An accusation became the legal equivalent of a conviction.

Decades later, a similar philosophy began to take hold on college campuses across the United States.  For example, a lawsuit against Oberlin College in Ohio revealed that every male accused of a sexual peccadillo at that school was found responsible of the alleged offense.

These "kangaroo courts" were shut down in 2020, when a new due process regulation took effect, thanks to the intrepid efforts of former Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.  The regulation featured a variety of commonsense due process procedures such as impartial investigations, cross-examination, and the presumption of innocence............To Read More.....

Doing Things Right: Betsy DeVos, Title IX and Due Process

By Richard K. Vedder  |  Posted: Tue. November 20, 2018

It took 149 pages of quasi-incomprehensible prose to state, but the U.S. Department of Education has finally done something positive: it has issued a proposed rule on the enforcement of the Title IX statute relating to sexual assault. It is to be commended because it follows the rule of law: the Department has formally proposed something that must, according to statute, be subject to public review and comment. This is in vivid contrast to the Obama Administration’s notorious 2011 “guidance” in sexual assault matters, which it issued without any opportunity for public comment or debate.   The “guidance” technically had no formal legal standing, but universities treated it as if it were law.

If this procedure were allowed to occur regularly, zealous government bureaucrats could drastically change the rules by which American citizens live and work, totally independent of constitutionally provided provisions of representative democracy. Therefore, independent of the content, Secretary of Education DeVos’s issuance of a rule is more in keeping with constitutional principles. To be sure, a strong case can be made that we would be better off without central direction of higher education, and that the narrow approval of the Department of Education in the late 1970s was a mistake, but that is a discussion for another day...........To Read More.....