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.
True. But the DOE has done it’s damage, partnered with teachers’ unions, media and other Frankfurt School followers.
It’s like cancer, gone deep into the American tissue, the belief we NEED such gov agencies to function and succeed. The Marxist-socialists’ plan, achieved.
And like metastasized cancer, the fix will be painful and damaging. The alternative is the death of America as founded and known during its successful times, and the death of our liberties. Tagline.
If Trump can fix this it will be 30 years before WE start to see the result!!! We NEED to get kids AWAY FROM COLLEGE and into trade schools, trade schools are far less expensive, shorter time to graduate and GREAT money right out of school!!! BEST of ALL they haven’t been brainwashed by LIB professors!!!!
No real problem to those who can read. Necessary and Proper clause ONLY applies to enumerated powers granted. Nothing else. Education was never an enumerated power. Dept. of Ed. was unconstitutional from the get go.
Trade? Ya mean, like in a factory or construction site or something? Like, working all day to make my money?
Uhhh...like...that’s not my personal vision for my happiness...
It should have been shut down years ago. Dept of Energy and HUD too.
Israel can never make peace with the palies because of the Palie education system. The hatred for Israel taught therein is ineradicable post academy. We are in the same situation. That is why I don’t believe there is a democratic solution. We are several generations past the time when most voters had had some exposure to History and Traditions. Most people are ready to believe any fair sounding thing they are told by ruling class people or their agents. They have nothing to compare it all with. With math education being scrambled or eliminated the rising generations lose foothold on rational thinking and politics becomes something akin to Magic.
Just think of the money that could be saved if all the useless(& there’s a ton of them)government agencies could be shut down. We might actually get back to functioning in a way that was originally intended. I realize it would mean a lot of unemployment,but private industry might be empowered in such a way from this move as to compensate for it. It would take a little time,but we surely can’t continue on the path we are on & hope to remain as a viable nation.
polymuser RIGHT YOU ARE about this attitude however welders, electricians, appliance repair people, heating air conditioning these folks make GREAT money these kids today are idiots !!!! They could start their own businesses and be VERY SUCCESSFUL because the fields are WIDE OPEN for those that work hard!!!!
Yep. I know the service industry. $25+/hour easily.
“But, it’s like...work. We wanna get good pay n be on our smartphones most of the day. We wanna blue ribbon for showing up!”
Yes this is a real problem. Justices have read the clause to mean implied powers which basically gives Congress/Exe. Branch unlimited “interpretationsâ€. For instance, Central banks (Not arguing against that, just expanded “enumerations†from the clause), Louisiana Purchase, New Deal programs, along with a whole host of Federal agencies. etc.
It should have never been launched: Rep. Newton Gingrich, R-GA, was among the early backers of the department, created with cheers among the voters in 1979.
Did Bob Dole support the establishment of the department? I can’t recall. Gingrich did!
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