Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

Pop Quiz

What religious leader said: “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”?

What President said: “The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth.”?

What foreign leader said: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”?

What magazine magnate said: “The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one.”?

Answers at the end of this post.

Randi Weingarten call your office! I am sorry, that number has been disconnected.

The Department of Miseducation, aka the DOE, is receding in the rear view mirror. In 1979 James Earl Carter threw a sop to the teachers unions by creating the DOE. This bureaucratic boondoggle is the best argument ever made for never using a Federal yardstick to measure success. Since the Department was founded, national test scores for American students have dropped faster than the political fortunes of Kamala Harris. Since the Department of Education was founded in 1979, the U.S. students have dropped from first to 24th in worldwide performance in education.

Decade	Ranking
1980s	Top 5
1990s	Top 10
2000s	Top 15
2010s	Top 20

And what did this abject string of failures cost the American taxpayers? In 1980 the DOE budget was $14.0 billion. The budget for 2024 was a paltry $280 billion. The only thing in Washington that has grown more rapidly since 1980 is the stock portfolio of Nancy Pelosi, Wolverine of Wall Street. DOGE will likely find a few (billion) dollars that simply disappeared into the ether. And that does not include the dirty little and unmeasured secret… the postage and handling, the vigorish, that disappears as the money moves from the taxpayer’s wallet to the US Treasury and then generally in the direction of the student population. How much actually got to the target audience is one of life’s enduring mysteries.

Net impact: diminished student performance, the swollen coffers of teacher’s unions and the lining of the pockets of politicians through campaign contributions. The largest line item in the DOE budget is some $160.7 billion distributed by the Office of Federal Student Aid…that would be the money that Joe Biden wanted to forgive. The impact of the student loan program has been an exponential increase in post-high school tuition costs. Your humble scribe attended law school in the early 1970s and the total tuition for three years was $5,000. Today that tuition for three years, at the very same institution, is about $105,000 for residents although there may be a surcharge for being able to say you went to the same law school that Eric Swalwell, Fang Fang’s boyfriend, attended.

Your tax dollars at work: DOGE has discovered that Small Business Administration loans totaling some $330 million were granted to “business” owners who were 11 years old or younger. There was one loan of $100,000 made to an nine month old tycoon who was planning a day care center for adults.

Apparently the Trump plan is to stop the round trip of tax dollars to Washington and let the states and local school districts manage local tax dollars (where the voters have more direct control) and the curricula of their local schools. That will be a recipe for success because the Federal Leviathan will no longer be tying Federal funds to such academic foolishness as DEI, CRT, library books imparting LGBT sexual practices and tampons in boy’s rest rooms.

Your tax dollars at work: Our benevolent masters in Washington have provided research grants in the amount of $386 million. That might be defensible but for the fact that these particular grants went to Australia. We can be assured this largess was “invested” in a study of transgender practices among the Adnyamathanha people, residents of South Australia. The Australian academic community is now staring at a dry spigot (a problem that recently afflicted Los Angeles fire hydrants) and they are not at all happy.

As most people know the provision of Federal funds comes with golden handcuffs. There are obligations with respect to how the money may be spent. Bureaucrats should not be imposing an “educational” agenda. It is time to start thinking outside the box. Maybe we should consider putting local educators in charge of education, educators who understand that the parents are customers not bystanders. Curricula should be developed at the local level, with customer input. In 2021 during the Virginia gubernatorial race candidate Terry McAwful argued that parents “should have no role in directing the education of their children.” Strangely, the parents of Virginia school children registered their disagreement with his position by electing his opponent.

The group that has suffered the most during the 45 years of DOE control are minorities in inner-city schools. George H. W. Bush said very few things things that are worth remembering but his reference to the “soft bigotry of low expectations” applies more today than ever. The under-performance of Black students in our public schools is a tragedy for two reasons: (1) it handicaps the ability of the students to succeed in our complex economy, and (2) it is fodder for the racist argument that Blacks are intellectually inferior. We need to invest in the schools that serve Black students by hiring the best teachers, providing the tools necessary for these teachers to meet the challenge and by reaching out to the parents of these children to ensure that they can provide support at home. This is a real challenge and the desk jockeys at DOE are not equipped to provide any meaningful support.

Your tax dollars at work: DOGE has discovered among the profligate spending programs at the Department of Health and Human Services: $1,3 million for a program to prevent teen pregnancy for “transgender boys”; $2.6 million for the study of “Structural Racism and Discrimination in Older Men’s Health Inequities” and a mere $822,539 to address “Buddhism and HIV Stigma in Thailand: An Intervention Study”…it must have worked because most Americans are no longer losing sleep over this issue.

School libraries should be expanded and reading encouraged starting in kindergarten. We have dropped time tested methods of teaching reading such as phonics. The result can be observed in a five minute conversation with many products of a public school education. As Frederick Douglass said: “Once you learn to read you will be forever free.”

Here is a link worthy of your attention: https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/03/25/teachers-unions-challenge-reintroduction-tried-true-phonics-method/

Every school should employ MEI…Merit, Excellence and Intellectual curiosity. In leftist bastions such as San Fransicko (hat tip to Michael Shellenberger) and Seattle they have eliminated advanced classes because gifted classes promote “opportunity hoarding”. That a bureaucrat even made that comment tells you all you need to know about the failures of the DOE.

We have set up a GoFundMe page to buy the pulchritudinous Ms. Weingarten a going away gift…a new Tesla.

Answers to the pop quiz:

What religious leader said: “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”? Martin Luther King, who would be incensed by the quality of the education being delivered to minorities in this country

What President said: “The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth.”? John Kennedy

What foreign leader said: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Nelson Mandela, one-time cellmate of Joe Biden

What magazine magnate said: “The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one.”? Malcolm Forbes