Posted on 05/18/2016 5:11:14 AM PDT by Kaslin
The Department of Education was created under President Carter in 1979 under the same misguided pretense that has driven much of the growth of our massively bloated federal government -- that if there is something we really care about, we should give more money and power to Washington bureaucrats.
It would be good news if the Department of Education just wasted the money it gets from our hard-earned taxes. But it uses the money to do real damage.
Nothing could provide a better example than the newly issued guidance letter that the Department of Education, jointly with the Justice Department, just sent to public school districts across the country, threatening to cut of federal funds if public schools do not comply with guidelines for treatment of so-called transgender students.
The first paragraph of the directive provides a toll-free phone number to call if you don't know the English language well enough to read the letter and then serves up this same paragraph in six different languages. Our own Department of Education is apparently of the view that familiarity with the English language is not among the responsibilities of American citizens.
The guidance letter lists requirements with which public schools must comply to demonstrate that they do not violate the alleged civil rights of transgender students.
Among these requirements are assurances that transgender students be allowed access to restrooms and locker rooms "consistent with their gender identity."
"Gender identity," according to the letter, "refers to an individual's internal sense of gender. A person's gender identity may be different from or the same as the person's sex assigned at birth."
The bottom line is that our Department of Education has put the nation's public schools on notice that their federal funds are in jeopardy if they don't allow little boys who think they are girls access to girls' restrooms and locker rooms and the opposite.
There are many deeply troubling things about this. Among them is knowledge that many with great political power in Washington, who control so much of our money, cannot distinguish between a fact and an opinion and have zero interest in even trying to make this distinction.
Referring to a "person's sex assigned at birth," as if an individual's sex was chosen by a bureaucrat as opposed to being a natural fact, the product of the mystery of creation, is astounding.
Or conveying as fact that there is something, totally unsubstantiated by science, called "gender identity," distinct and apart from the natural sexual reality with which an individual is born, is equally astounding.
In a country such as ours today, where opinions are so widely diverse about what is true and what life is about, we cannot have power concentrated in Washington. Certainly, in education, we must maximize freedom of individuals to control their own lives and how to educate their own children.
According to a new Cato Institute report, Department of Education spending on K-12 education now stands at $40.2 billion, ten times greater in inflation-adjusted dollars than the $4.5 billion where it stood just prior to the creation of the education department. Over this period, despite the prodigious federal spending, test scores in reading and math have hardly changed. Adding in spending from federal departments other than the Department of Education on K-12 education, the total stands at over $80 billion.
This amounts to $1,600 for every child enrolled in public schools.
To repeat, the Department of Education is not just wasting the billions it controls. It does substantial damage by forcing its own left-wing views on the nation's families.
The Education department should be shut down and these funds should either be returned to taxpayers and or sent to parents with children in public schools to be used toward vouchers to allow them to choose where to send their children to school.
Way past time to shut down ALL the Agencies and Departments beyond the original four. If President Trump does not accomplish that then all the good he might otherwise do will be transitory and the agencies are so large and intertwined with everything in the economy and the society now that the resurgence post Trump will be very rapid.
That is the only thing it does.
They can no longer read cursive, will not read a book,
cannot keep a notebook, and mock and bully anyone learning.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED — with zero, as usual, accountability.
This should include state departments of ed as well.
Exactly correct....ALL the agencies need to become history...
Cut them and you automatically cut the budget, open the private side for more industry, jobs, and enhance the economy...The regulations demanded by many of these agencies has stifled growth and well being in this country for far too long....
As it is, it will take quite a while to get education back to where it was 50 years ago....
That's something most Americans forget (including me)
It's a relatively new department, only 37 years ago.
It's not an institution. The Dept. can easily be dissolved.
I think we can do without the Dept of Education
No program ever gets cut or shut down in Washington, because no one can shut them down and no one ever gets fired no matter how incompetent they are or how badly they screw up
My best justification for Donald Trump as President is that he can fire people and shut down what needs to be shut down
Americans love to hear Donald Trump tell people , “ you are fired” and will cheer when he does fire some of the people who seriously need to go.
And, due to civil service rules, the only way to fire these losers is to eliminate their job functions
She hit the nail squarely on the head. I love it.
“”Referring to a “person’s sex assigned at birth,” as if an individual’s sex was chosen by a bureaucrat as opposed to being a natural fact, the product of the mystery of creation, is astounding.
Or conveying as fact that there is something, totally unsubstantiated by science, called “gender identity,” distinct and apart from the natural sexual reality with which an individual is born, is equally astounding.””
Government schools at all levels are Democrat propaganda operations. They create mostly a lot of little Bernie Sanders.
Depot of edumaction?
How about E.P.A.?
Dept of injustice?
Bureau of Injun affairs?
N.P.R.?
T.S.A.?
I can go on for a long while here as there are multitudes of absolutely WORTHLESS gub mint bureaus, agencies, departments etc.
About 60 percent of the entire federal gub mint should be eliminated. Worthless drags of business and society.
Yeah... Sure...
shutting down these agencies has a multiplier effect. It is not just the appropriated dollars they spend but the dollars their insane edicts cause to be spent. Following their inane directives probably has a 10 to 1 overall cost.
Just look at the example in the original posting. The message was sent out in 6 different languages. That is because of the directive to have ESL in schools to accommodate our multicultural agenda. English is NOT a second language here, it is the first and primary language. This transgender crap is going to lead to separate facilities for those who feel “threatened”, then comes the money spent to defend against suits. On and on all from some simpleton deciding we need to have an original directive.
2MT ground burst urban renewal in DC would cure 99% of the problems in the country. It would cause a few for sure but the balance would be in favor of the US as a whole.
Waaaaaay past time to shut down the Department of Education.
And Energy.
And Health and Human Services.
And Urban Development.
And Labor.
And Homeland (In)Security.
That is just for starters.
While I have no love for Carter or the DoE, it must be pointed out that Eisenhower created the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW). All Carter did was to split HEW into the DoE and the Department of Health and Human Service so that bureaucrats would have twice as many job opportunities.
ML/NJ
Nice wet dream but not happening any time soon. We’re already too far down the rabbit hole and we’ve found the place is being run by 535 Mad Hatters, not just merely one.
The time for that was thirty years ago.
(thank you RINOs who would not support President Reagan on that)
Joe, you must understand that the “gub mint” has created a HUGH system of agencies that employ people to do NOTHING.
It is what I call “White Collar Welfare!”
To end it all at once would put millions on the unemployment lines.
Actually, that is not a bad idea. The savings would enable us to balance the Federal Budget and pay off the YUGE national debt.
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