The Department of Education: Necessary or Superfluous?

This week DOGE and Elon Musk are going to do a deep dive into the finances and funding of the federal Department of Education. Predictably, the Democrats are up in arms over this audit of the DOE.

But what are Democrats so afraid of?

In case, you didn't hear the news - the Department of Education released its student test score data in late January for the 2024 school year. Surprisingly, the legacy news media refused to cover this story.

That's right, there were no headlines like this, "American Students are Illiterate!"

Because that's what the data actually said.

Now I've been in education for over 20 years and I have never seen student test scores this low before in my life. The problem for Democrats is there's no more Covid to blame for the debacle.

Unfortunately, the public wants to point the finger at someone. The public and the media need someone to blame.

But I want to take a different approach in 2025.

Instead of blaming people for the worst educational system of all 40 developed nations, why not just admit we failed and start fixing the problem. To me, that sounds like a much better approach because we've played the blame game for the last 25 years and its gotten us no where.

But how do we fix an educational system that no one understands?

This is the big picture problem.

So what is the purpose of education? Do we actually need a federal department of education? What should teachers be doing in class? And how do we fully prepare students for the future?

These are the questions I'm going to answer in this article.

First up, what is the purpose of education.

People and academics can argue about the model you want to use or what classes you want to offer, but the purpose of school should be to fully prepare students for their future success.

If you can't agree with that basic philosophy, then no wonder why our schools are failing.

The question becomes do we need a federal DOE to ensure that students are fully prepared for their future success?

Based on the last 25 years of data and history - the answer would be no. The fact is the federal department of education has gotten in the way of improving schools more than they have helped improving schools.

All the federal department of education provides is one more thick layer of bureaucracy to an already thick layer of education bureaucracy. The problem is bureaucrats don't teach kids -- teachers teach kids.

Therefore, we need less bureaucrats and more teachers.

I wish our legacy media did a better job at informing the public about what is actually happening in this country, but unfortunately we can no longer count on them to do their jobs.

For example, did you know that over 1 million teachers have quit the profession in the last 5 years?

Right now, there are approximately 3.6 million certified teachers in the US and the educational system needs closer to 3.9 million certified teachers to cover every classroom, if there are only 20 students per class.

Less teachers means bigger class sizes and also more stressed out teachers, which in turn burns more teachers out and causes more teachers to quit the profession. In other words, the bad situation just gets worse and worse.

But what should the teachers who survive the system do in class with kids? After all, the teacher is supposed to have a job to do. So what is that job?

And this is where the controversy gets even worse. That's right, no one can agree on one job description for teachers. The teachers union has one definition, 20 year veteran teachers have a different definition, the federal department of education has its own definition, meanwhile talking head experts have a fourth definition and don't even get me started on parents, business leaders, pundits or prognosticators.

If there was one thing the federal Department of Education could do to improve school quality - it would be to clearly define the teacher job description for everyone in America. But then again, its impossible for a bureaucratic machine in Washington DC to define anything, when having a clear definition would render someone's special interest Chapter 11.

Which brings us to the final question.

How do we fully prepare 21st century learners for the future?

I can tell you how we "don't" prepare them.

If you really want 21st century learners to be fully prepared for the future, then you don't use a 20th century curriculum to educate them. Why would anyone think that using an old and out of touch curriculum would help 21st century learners thrive?

You would have to be purposefully gaslighting the next generation if you think a 20th century curriculum is going to stand up to the fast-paced modern world.

But we just met and I don't know you that well. So is that what you're trying to do? Are you gaslighting the next generation with a 20th century curriculum?

So what's the answer? And more importantly what's the solution?

In the wonderful world of social media -- I'm not allowed to give you the answer right now. That's right, no one wants to read an article that's too long. Therefore, if you want to know the real answer and solution, you have to follow my account and stay tuned for the next article that will outline the exact solution to the problem.

Thanks for listening and I hope you have a great rest of your day :)