Let me begin by asserting that the bully politics from all sides can not continue if we are ever going to address the critical issues of the 21st Century. For too long now, you are branded with a sneering name if you stray just a little bit from the accepted narrative of either of the parties. No one dare stray at all from the prescription or risk being branded as a RINO, a DUC, or one of those MAGA’s. God forbid anyone should be critical of anything done by each side’s preferred thinking. After all, why risk pointing out when errors are made if it means you are kicked out of the tent?
I am sorry. I disagree with this. I firmly believe that you can be a loyal R or D and still be able to identify a better way, a better path, or even just a tweak here and there on a critical policy issue. So. As for me. I will continue to be constructively critical when I think warranted and will offer praise when it is earned. A case in point is the proposed elimination of the US Department of Education. Frankly, I do not disagree with a shake-up, but I lament this missed opportunity to actually do more.
I’ve been deeply involved in public policy issues for decades, so nothing really surprises me when DC makes pronouncements about major policy shifts and uses illogical arguments for advocacy. Watching the proposed dismantling of the US Department of Education is a good example of politics substituting for policy. Instead of arguing for reductions in bureaucracy and ill-advised spending, even the transferring of some activities better suited being placed in other agencies, the advocates for elimination seek to link federal engagement, which for the most part is passing through program funding to states, to the horrific performance as evidenced by test scores of students. It might make good sound bites, but it is absent logic. If the push is to ‘return control’ to states and local school districts as a solution to poor comparative results on testing, then would it not be more logical to realize that it is at the local and state levels where the inadequacies in performance and learning are taking place?
Does anyone assume that by reducing a bureaucratic appendage in DC, magically our scores will improve? Yes, there is something terribly wrong with our educational achievements. Since the beginning of NAEP testing, our country has shown a steady decline in scores in all subjects tested. When USDOE was created, we were not testing like we are now. I have not seen any link that ties USDOE to why at least thirty schools in Chicago do not have even one student who tests at grade level, or any other dismal measure of our students’ academic performance. Yet, our federal government is spending time focused once again on shuffling bureaucracy instead of advocating a national emergency in learning. We need a MOONSHOT attitude, and what we get is rearranging the furniture. The consequences of poor performance are too long to list here, but surely our national focus needs to be on the real emergency.
Many districts across the country are doing well, while many continue to languish. Who is examining what is happening in those districts that excel, or even within schools that excel, while others around them continue to fail? Why is this not a national priority?
When students fail, when they drop out, or if they leave school with a useless diploma and they have limited reading and math skills, they are destined for lives filled with struggle, unemployment, perhaps crime and punishments, and they will be a burden upon society. Yet, our focus is upon bureaucracies and structures. Thomas Sowell gets it. “You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats, procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.”
If all states and all local districts were performing well, perhaps just providing block grants for pre-K-12 at the state level might make sense. The Feds, on average, only fund 8% of school costs, with states and local governments through property taxes providing 92%. States decide the curriculum. States pick textbooks. States certify teachers. Except for a few higher-performing outliers, many states fail, with failures especially prevalent in our larger, more urban school districts. My argument has less to do with bureaucracy and mostly to do with thinking these actions will make anything better. Have you seen one proposal focused on performance improvement, or just all the palaver about how much has been spent over 40 years, yada yada. It’s a typical government response to huge problems. “Well, this isn’t working, so let’s rearrange the furniture “. Like I said above, we need a MOONSHOT attitude. We are not likely to get one.
You can rearrange the deck chairs on a sinking boat, and it still sinks.
Delivery of education content is already driven by states and districts, and aside from a few state outliers, they are doing a poor job. Who is focusing on the how or the why?
