Posted on 02/14/2025 6:50:58 AM PST by MtnClimber
Americans who care deeply about education were treated to a rare sight on Thursday. In her testimony before Congress to be the head of the Department of Education, Linda McMahon openly and proudly outlined a plan to not just get rid of her job, but take the federal government out of the education business. We wish her luck.
In January, before Trump first bruited his idea to close the Education Department, I&I archly suggested that “The most successful secretary of Education will be the one who shuts it down.” Little did we know that President Donald Trump would propose just that, and let his pick to lead the department make the case for doing so to Congress.
“I’d like it to be closed immediately,” Trump said on Wednesday. “The Department of Education’s a big con job.”
He’s right. McMahon, that ultra-rare unusual appointee whose greatest desire is to close her department and put herself out of a job, outlined a day later why and how she’d do that.
While Trump’s criticism sounds harsh, in fact, even under his plan many pieces of the current Education Department would remain in place — but within other parts of government. The Ed Department has failed in its mission and needs to be dismantled, though that will require lawmakers’ approval.
“I will work with Congress to reorient the department to helping educators, not controlling them,” McMahon said, adding: “Defunding is not the goal here.” Defund, no; dismantle, yes.
McMahon noted in her questioning that, for instance, aid for disabled students would likely be better handled by the Department of Health and Human Services, rather than the Education Department. And she vowed more than once that Congress’ federal aid to low-income school districts and students would be maintained.
So does the department really need to be dismantled? You bet. And McMahon, former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment but also former head of the Small Business Administration in Trump’s previous four years in office, is just the woman to do the job.
The recent experience with COVID underscores why education is too important to be left to Big Government. Under President Joe Biden, the Ed Department presided over teacher-union-friendly school shutdowns and shoddy “remote learning” programs that caused literally millions of American school kids’ of every race and ethnicity to lose ground against previous generations.
Many if not most of them will pay for this with shrunken incomes and fewer choices over their lifetimes. It’s an epic disgrace.
This was from a report from just two years ago: “The COVID-19 pandemic spared no state or region as it caused historic learning setbacks for America’s children, erasing decades of academic progress and widening racial disparities, according to results of a national test that provide the sharpest look yet at the scale of the crisis.”
But surely, you say, things are better now. After all, COVID’s over, so test scores must have recovered, especially after additional spending of $90 billion during COVID.
If you thought things would be better, you were dead wrong. The shock report two weeks ago that showed test scores plunging from five years ago was alarming to say the least.
As we wrote then:
(T)est scores remain abysmal, with no improvement. Average reading scores for 8th graders (America’s future workforce, mind you) have fallen from 263 in 2019 to 258 in 2024, erasing 33 years of slow improvement in reading. Math is just as bad, if not worse. True, the 274 level is the same as in 2022, but it’s way below the level five years ago.
So, no, nothing has improved. Instead, it was revealed to what extent the Department of Education had become a money-launderer for powerful teachers unions and their allies in major Democrat-run cities’ school districts. Trump is right; it’s a massive scam.
If you want proof, just look at the nation’s capital. There, spending per pupil was $27,425 in 2022, second only to the state of New York’s $29,873, according to the Census Bureau.
So how did the District do with all that extra cash? The recent National Assessment of Educational Progress scores was summed up recently by the Dallas Express:
Despite the high level of spending compared to other districts, 48 jurisdictions scored significantly higher on the 2022 NAEP assessment for fourth grade math, and 49 scored higher than D.C. on the eighth grade assessment.
For reading, D.C. was significantly behind 42 other jurisdictions in fourth grade reading. In eighth grade, it was behind 44 other states and districts, which includes districts like the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA).
The Education Department has little to do with educating, and a lot to do with mollifying the teachers unions, some of the biggest political donors in the nation. Indeed, as we noted recently, recently deceased President Jimmy Carter created the Education Department expressly at the behest of the nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association (NEA).
Ever since then, the Ed Department has been beholden to teachers unions, particularly during Democratic administrations (in the 2024 political cycle, education unions gave 98.4% of all their contributions to Democrats). For instance, under Biden, schools received an added $190 billion during COVID, an unparalleled influx of money.
But it did nothing to improve student scores. In fact, scores fell.
Nothing new there. Since the Education Department was formed in 1979, things have pretty much been the same. A lot of taxpayer spending, no big changes, and few if any results. An exercise in bureaucratic waste and futility. Kill it off, and use its demise as a model for other useless bureaucracies.
Yep. Trump is right. It’s time to dismantle the Education Department, which has failed us for 46 years. In its place, we need innovation: school vouchers, school choice, professional trade education for the non-college bound, and a renewed emphasis on teaching basic skills such as reading, writing, and math.
Before we can get those things, however, we need to decentralize education. That means taking control of education away from Washington, D.C., and handing power back to parents, teachers, and locally elected school boards – where it belongs.
Yeah, but our kids know how to use a condom better than any other country.
Yes. The states don’t need it.
There are numerous woketardian local school boards who need to be thrown out into the gutter for pushing DEI propaganda.
Problem is that wha you called failure is success for democrats
Yes, 46 years of failure is enough.
WIKI
The modern era of French education begins at the end of the 19th century. Jules Ferry, the Minister of Public Instruction in 1881, is widely credited for creating the modern school (l’école républicaine) by requiring all children between the ages of 6 and 12, both boys and girls, to attend. He also made public instruction mandatory, free of charge, and secular (laïque). With those laws, known as French Lubbers, Jules Ferry laws, and several others, the Third Republic repealed most of the Falloux Laws of 1850–1851, which gave an important role to the clergy.
The French curriculum predominantly emphasized the works of French writers of European descent. Ferry and others considered literature the glue of French identity. The ethnic and cultural demographics of the student body did not factor in to the quest to transmit a “common culture” to the students.
Like literature, history education is seen as critical to shaping the identity of young people and the integration of immigrants to French identity. Ferry’s views continue to exert influence today. Ministry reports have confirmed that the rule of schools in promoting “common culture” is only made more critical by the rising levels of student diversity. According to the ministry, history education in France has, over the course of one century made possible “the integration of children of Italians, Poles, Africans and Portuguese”.
At the primary and secondary levels, the curriculum is the same for all French students in any given grade, which includes public, semi-public and subsidised institutions. However, there exist specialised sections and a variety of options that students can choose.
Most parents start sending their children to preschool (maternelle) when they turn 3. Some even start earlier at age 2 in toute petite section (”TPS”). The first two years of preschool (TPS and petite section “PS”) are introductions to community living; children learn how to become students and are introduced to their first notions of arithmetic, begin to recognize letters, develop oral language, etc. The last two years of preschool, moyenne section and grande section, are more school-like; pupils are introduced to reading, writing and more mathematics.
A preschool can be stand-alone (mostly true in towns and cities) or be affiliated to an elementary school (mostly in villages). As in other educational systems, primary school students in France usually have a single teacher (or two) who teaches the entire curriculum, without specialist teachers.
After kindergarten, the young students move on to the école élémentaire (elementary school). In the first 3 years of elementary school, they learn to write, develop their reading skills and get some basics in subjects such as French, mathematics, science and the arts, to name a few. The French word for a teacher at the primary school level is professeur or professeure des écoles (previously called instituteur, or its feminine form institutrice).
Children stay in elementary school for 5 years until they are 10–11 years-old. The grades are named: CP (cours préparatoire), CE1 (cours élémentaire 1), CE2 (cours élémentaire 2), CM1 (cours moyen 1) and CM2 (cours moyen 2).
The compulsory middle and high school subjects cover French language and literature, history and geography, foreign languages, arts and crafts, musical education, civics, mathematics, physics, chemistry, natural sciences, technology, and PE. The curriculum is set by the Ministry of National Education and applies to most collèges in France and also to AEFE-dependent institutions. Académies and individual schools have little freedom in the State curriculum.
Class sizes vary from school to school, but usually range from 20 to 35 pupils.
After primary school, two educational stages follow:
collège (middle school), for children during their first four years of secondary education from the age of 11 to 15.
lycée (high school), which provides a three-year course of further secondary education for children between the ages of 15 and 18. Pupils are prepared for the baccalauréat (baccalaureate, colloquially known as le bac) or the CAP (Certificat d’aptitude professionnelle). The baccalauréat can lead to higher education studies or directly to professional life (there are three main types of baccalauréat: the baccalauréat général, the baccalauréat technologique, and the baccalauréat professionnel).
CFA (centre de formation des apprentise, apprentice learning center), which provides vocational degrees: le Certificat d’aptitude professionnelle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_France
America has become a lot less white than it was 46 years ago too. Can’t blame the department of education for that mistake.
Sums it right up. Eliminate it!
It sure seems that way. All youth sports should be handled by independent sports associations without government funding. Many youth baseball teams compete in leagues that are not connected to a school. Football, basketball, wrestling, etc., should do the same.
Less failure as such than 40 years of nothing.
K-12 in the US is overwhelmingly a state thing. It is possible to rank states on K-12 performance using the one useful function of the US DofE, the NAEP test series.
I used to do this, periodically, by dumping NAEP Math and English 8th grade results (HS results are too scattered for simple analysis) and disassociating by race - compare Texas black kids vs Wisconsin black kids, etc. That equalizes demographics. You may not be terribly surprised that Texas beat Wisconsin consistently across all races. Etc. If someone wants to learn something about US education, like maybe what state policies people should be copying, the DofE has some tools for it.
But the Feds really have little else, other than to hand out some K-12 funds, but even that is a minor matter. It just adds a bit of complication to school district budgeting and requires a few more admin personnel.
Btw I say DofE because, professionally, my main concern was the DOE, Department of Energy. Thats an entirely different beast. Just wait till DOGE goes there.
The more real data the better, the ed elites can't run from the data. And use the data to point out where and why the successes are. That's where the Fed can help direct the states.
French education turns out educated people able to follow complex arguments. And their French is lovely. They can be rather stiff though - in school all exposition (argument) must be in three parts - and I have received these three part school paper arguments in emails! From engineers!
Discipline is a big deal, and as you may have gathered, the rules are sacred.
Im not too convinced by what the French system does with math. But heck, they do vastly better than what the US does with the average student.
I credit the French Ministry of Education system mainly for instilling and maintaining teacher quality. The Ministry itself does the teacher training and their institutional character seems impeccable. They RESPECT, above all, the French language.
...but at least our 8th graders know why Billy has two dads.
Yes, every county school has beautiful sports facilities.
Lot’s of sports programs (our had like 40).
Physical education, but no physics classes!
Well State and federal government agencies have been lobbied by the NEA and various PTSA’s that education just needs a little bit more money so that students can get the teaching they require and learn. Then they tried that they need to all be fed, so that they are ready to learn. That they need busing to create a diverse classroom and that the busing will leave them less tired. Let's not forget that music and arts programs are important so that the students can better learn math, reading and science.
But above all, lets remember that we have been told that testing to normative standards are racist. If Johnny can't read at grade level or do simple math, it doesn't matter unless one is racist.
Yes, get the federal government out of the education business, or set standards that “must” be met to receive any money from the federal government.
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