5. Spending by the Department of Education has skyrocketed with absolutely no effect on test scores. While spending at the federal level has increased at a frightening rate, "student test scores in math, reading and science have remained flat or declined over the past four decades."
4. Why? Because under this administration the Department of Education isn't interested in proven programs to help students like school choice and vouchers. In fact, it battles school choice on every front imaginable.3. Why? Because the 2009 Stimulus was -- and the latest "Jobs" bill is -- nothing but a payoff to the teachers' unions to fuel Democrats' campaign coffers. By keeping teachers employed, even if a school district can't afford them, the Democrats ensure that union dues keep flowing, which are laundered into campaign contributions.
2. Because it's been an abysmal failure that we can't afford: the Department of Education’s 2011 budget is nearly six times its original budget. It has increased from $13.1 billion (in 2007 dollars) in 1980 to $77.8 billion in 2011. And, by every measure, it's been a horrific waste of money, which the United States simply can't tolerate in its current fiscal situation.
1. Finally, there is absolutely no Constitutional authority for the Department of Education. The 1996 GOP platform read, “the Federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved in school curricula or to control jobs in the market place. This is why we will abolish the Department of Education, end federal meddling in our schools, and promote family choice at all levels of learning.”
So I urge you to support the eradication of this useless, unconstitutional appendage of the teachers' unions.
In fact, do it for the children.
Linked by: White House Dossier. Thanks!
Having an engineering background, I like to put things into a formula to make logical sense of it. This falls into a simple formula:
ReplyDeleteDepartment of X = Useless waste of money.
Simple.
Sadly, we have gotten used to the government wasting money. The use of government money to intentionally damage America is the problem today.
ReplyDeleteThe absence of a "light bulb" moment. Give them a brightly colored crayola and tell them to connect the dots and duhs.
ReplyDeleteSAT reading scores for graduating high school seniors this year reached the lowest point in nearly four decades, reflecting a steady decline in performance in that subject on the college admissions test.
In the Washington area, one of the nation’s leading producers of college-bound students, educators were scrambling to understand double-digit drops in test scores in Montgomery and Prince William counties and elsewhere.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/sat-reading-scores-drop-to-lowest-point-in-decades/2011/09/14/gIQAdpoDTK_story.html
I agree with a lot of your points- and I am a teacher!
ReplyDeleteTo A Conservative Teacher, If you want to see what's around the corner, go look at Khan Academy's website. Oodles of information for anyone with even a slight auto-didactic bent. Just imagine, you and another motivated teacher, structuring a curriculum around such a site, can do wonders to reverse the trend you see in public schools. Heck, get some homeschooling types involved and you may have some serious potential on hand.
ReplyDeleteScrewels of despair and not much else, until it's payday. Lars
ReplyDeleteAs the Dept of Education comes more under fire, there is a move afoot to establish them as a regulatory agency in that they can now punitively fine colleges and universities at will for violations of policy. Sometimes those violations precede the actual requirement as in the case of Virginia Tech. Making their ability to take punitive action retroactively! They recently fines another school for their handling of some sexual assaults in 2007. Once established as a regulatory agency with police powers they will be firmly entrenched in the government and will never go away.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing that dumbing down a populace costs more than doing nothing. That's the government. Pointless wasteful tyrants. Propaganda is still so costly, hiding and covering up. The government is what needs to go, fucking vile morons.
ReplyDeleteRon Paul wants to eliminate the Department of Education, along with four other departments, and cut a TRILLION dollars of spending his first year. Anyone who votes for big-government Obama or big-government neocons in 2012 has no one to blame but themselves for big government.
ReplyDeletethey do investigate complaints of student discrimination. that is a good thing. otherwise professors will discriminate against students based on disability, race, or any other factor. Such professors maybe rare but it definitely exists.
ReplyDeleteThe Dept. of Ed breaks its own laws, so how could we expect the Dept to succeed? It is a failure on EVERY level! The newly passed ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) will give the States LESS control and the Sec/Ed MORE control! The overreach spans from birth to graduate school and into the Workforce. The union of the Depts. of Ed and Labor have skewed what true education is supposed to be and in its place, mandated a streamlined work based learning NOT for the students benefits, but the NATION'S economy and global stance.
ReplyDelete