Too many armchair educators here. I literally teach a lecture on this as part of a class on students with disabilities. Key things about DoE:
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It’s 4% of the budget and 2/3 of that is to subsidize higher education for middle and lower income families. For K-12, it’s about 5% of the budget, as most funding is state (unfortunately usually by property tax, which generally fucks poor folk).
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To get that 5%, you need to play by DoE rules. That includes no discrimination, school must be free and accessible, and you need to follow IDEA, the law that gives students with disability access to an education. Without federal DoE, there is no standard requirement to accommodate kids with Autism, learning disabilities, and more. (Technically section 504 can still apply, but it’s complicated. Private schools usually have that but not IDEA). Btw, about 100B + 20B for K-12 funds and disability, respectfully.
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DoE funds and conducts a ton of research that improves pedagogy, not just the standard NCLB achievement tracking but things like the ELS database that is one of the few sets with data from 10th grade all the way to age 30, to directly analyze effects of high school programs on long term success. My dissertation used that, and yes, those folks are probably super-illegal fired, USAID style. If you’re wondering, it’s 800M in grants and research, which is chump change.
Understand, this is as idiotic as gutting the IRS. Economics have found that return on investment is tremendous (8x to 60x depending on who you ask) because you reduce crime and expensive prison costs. Simply preventing a murder saves millions of dollars, and education is shown to do this (including the very same ELS data I mentioned!)
There’s more that I can say, but if you have questions, I literally have a degree in education policy. Please ask!
The problem is that smart people don’t vote republican, and the republicans need more brown noses.
So increase DoE funding and decouple schools from property tax funding?
But then how would
- the private sector profit from education,
- and the churches
indoctrinate the young and massively inflate their numbersdo their very important charity of education?
Wild times
Two useful things, but there’s no political incentive unfortunately. Education is usually the first thing to defund since you won’t deal with ramifications until long after your term ends. Only senetors and judicial last long enough and neither are responsible for budget… you just rarely get anyone trying.
States do even things out on their end, but same issue with terms. California for instance has a budget deficit and are cutting education budgets (albeit mostly with higher ed, iirc). That means more reliance on local funds, which ironically fuck rural voters most, aka Republican districts (funny enough, this distribution of funds to rural schools is a big reason DoE survived Reagan with GOP support).
Could school vouchers and tax credits work?
School vouchers are actually terrible. They take funding from already struggling schools and give it to private institutions which already don’t have to follow many of the policies outlined above (they can discriminate in a lot of ways that public schools can’t). They also mostly end up being a subsidy for the wealthy.
I assumed. That’s just the argument I always hear. If the IRS gets gutted it seems like the revenue wouldn’t be there to fund them anyway.
You should be extra cautious around any suggestion of voucher programs. We’ve heard them proposed for schools and we’ve heard them proposed for healthcare expenses. One fundamental problem with vouchers is that they are set to a fixed amount of money, but what happens if quality service requires more than that? Well, people just don’t get quality service, right?.. And that’s the intentional gimmick. That’s the goal. In the past the government might provide a service using tax dollars, then it switches to vouchers, but then when the vouchers don’t provide enough cash now the service itself gets cut. And somehow it’s supposed to be inevitable.
I was reading a study about education reform over the last 20 years and essentially the push for rewarding teachers based on student performance and voucher systems and the idea to make schools compete highly against each other, that’s all totally failed to improve the quality of education in multiple countries. If you remember when Bush was pushing NCLB, one of the ideas was the notion that we should make teachers and schools compete just like businesses. But that actually doesn’t make sense on a national policy level intuitively, because you don’t want one school to be better than another, you want all schools to be better. (Or rather, I want all schools to be better, but some people have really f***** up values.) And then now there’s solid data from large international groups that show our intuitions were accurate.
NCLB at face value isn’t bad, and I wouldn’t characterize it as a competition, but it had a few fundamental flaws. The biggest was punishing underperforming schools, which is just… really stupid, like how exactly is that going to make the schools better? The second was teach to the test, since we quantified (poorly) what education is. That enforced rote memory over critical thinking and reasoning skills.
My more personal gripe is statistical, though. Using cutoff scores without actually accounting for covariates (like previous scores) has also gotta be the worst possible way to track success. If a student is reading at a 4th grade level while in 10th grade, a school is punished if they read at an 8th grade level in 11th grade (a four year improvement!). Like, Jesus Christ, I’m so glad Obama admin at least fixed most glaring problems in 2015, cause yikes.
I’m with you. Education, in my opinion, is one of those things that’s too important to leave up to private. I don’t get the plan here, so really just trying to understand.
Others already cut to the chase, but yeah. The long short of it is that’s just another move to siphon funds to the wealthy at the cost of the needy. I won’t say it could never work, but it would likely be less efficient if you managed the same coverage as public school.
You could draw analogies to healthcare. When healthcare is privatized, not only does everyone pay more, it also leaves a ton of people without coverage. Same for education, as every child has to be covered. The voucher system works similar to subsidized healthcare (e.g. Medicare) which kinda works but why convert a perfectly acceptable universal option with a more expensive, more complicated, and more unequal system? You just inflate costs and certain people make money while everyone else suffers… without even improving quality, no less.
That all said, I’m generally open minded. It’s frustrating knowing how much better private schools are vs public… when I attended UCLA, I was frequently surrounded by private school alumns because they had connections. They had counselors, AP courses, tutors, and here I was, a first generation who only got in because of community college. It’s very unfair as it is, and I fully understand the wishful thinking some (few) might have in a voucher system. But the research just isn’t behind it.
Yeah, I agree. Just trying to explore all viewpoints because I truly don’t get how people think defunding the DoE will fix things. The system has clear issues, but breaking it up and making it more expensive doesn’t seem like the answer either.
It’s probably mostly propaganda that gets most people, same with USAID. People have a poor grasp of what they do and higher ups know but they likely have an interest in it, like ties to the industry or are anti-science/pro-religion or simply hate a group they want to discriminate against. DoE protects and improves the social mobility of black and brown folk and that was good enough reason in the 80s for GOP to target it, after all.
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Can he just do this with an EO? Can the country ignore the EO until Congress ratifies it?
I assume it’ll be contested
Absolutely no sarcasm here, I suggest everyone look into PragerU to know exactly what’s to come for publicly funded schooling. It is terrifying, deeply disturbing, and harmful.
Just hear it straight from the horses mouth and peruse their YouTube channel. (Don’t forget to check out PragerU Kids)
The most annoying part is being called an alarmist for years, just for it all to become true.
Tell me about it… I still feel like I’m being gaslit when talking about this shit in any offline space. It’s wreaking havoc on my mental health.
Those guys are what got me to finally start using adblocker, when they were running their videos as every other youtube ad (unless they still do that)
I mean, in honesty it might not be the best to use an adblocker for it. Honestly we need like the opposite… an ad mass player or something. does something like that exist (IE something to try and hit the ad budgets of the guys).
I heard of a forefox extension rceently calm AdNauseum that’s sorta like that. Haven’t tried it yet though
I’m sure Google is already doing that to pad their budgets.
While I’m not against homeschooling, it seems more like a privilege that I would say most families in the U.S. cannot have one parent drop out of the workforce to pursue.
I’m absolutely against homeschooling. The overwhelming majority of it is evangelical Christian garbage.
Soon we’ll be subsidizing it with our taxes (with zero oversight of curriculum of course).
There has to be a too long dont watch version…
Big Joel has done a number of videos critiquing PragerU: PragerU PragerU Kids
He’s got more videos critiquing specific PragerU content as well, all from a couple of years ago.
Zoe Bee as well, she’s a teacher who speaks largely in lecture video essay format. Here are the 4 videos I’ve seen of hers https://youtu.be/cLKMW1LII7c https://youtu.be/4NAiPYaogCw https://youtu.be/ZhWxDgJv7PI https://youtu.be/ZUz1nCRJJBg
All highly recommended, Joel too
Interesting. Really leaning into that “uneducated people are easier to control”
“The proles are our only hope”
Krasnov still hard at it
And Americans will hand it over without firing a shot.
Very disappointed in Americans, Luigi is only respectable one.
I support what Luigi allegedly did 100%, but what change did that bring about and where did he end up? The POTUS is arguably the safest man in the world. Walking up to the Whitehouse to just end it isn’t how that works.
It’s going to require an organized effort and sacrifice for any chance of success. To add, 30+% of the population supports the current situation, so it’s not just one bad apple. Lastly, the majority of Americans have not really been affected yet, so the urgency to sacrifice oneself for an almost 0% chance of success isn’t really there.
I’d like to see judges start arresting people carrying out Trump’s illegal orders. Might not be able to go after Trump, but not a single one of those other players have the legal protections he has. Make people scared to carry out his orders and maybe less people will be lining up to do so.
What change?! WHAT CHANGE?! no one changed anything! Why didn’t SOMEONE ELSE do anything?
I’m too busy with my mccorpo job to save my country, my family, my friends…
But someone else… someone else should do something about this but not that thing, because what change did it bring?
Do you understand the kind of person you are yet?
Yes, someone surviving. Unless you’re in our shoes, you can get right off you high horse and fuck off. Big words from someone who’s never sacrificed literally everything for almost 0 chance of change.
Hell, the Trump admin could affect you too, why haven’t you started popping off conservatives to save the day?
The change was meant to be in you. You were meant to follow his lead.
So target another Republican who isn’t the safest man in the world. When they can’t get any middle managers to issue their orders for them because they’re all dead or scared you will have made a change.
Judges are not going to achieve anything. Don’t even bother wasting your time on that libshit.
It feels like the whole reason for this is so that Christians can have their own schools not controlled by fed rules/laws. Self-segregation.
It’s not that. They already can have their own schools. It’s just they want to take our money to pay for them, and they want to push their values on to us.
If you’ve been reading the newspapers over the last year or two, you’ve seen various States try to pass various rules about the Bible or the Ten Commandments. They weren’t doing that in private schools; private schools already could do that, right? So partly we have people who are trying to force Christianity on to others, but I think more importantly we have people who want money and power, and they will weaponize religion in order to get it, as people have always done throughout the course of human history. It’s not like these people pushing to get Christian religious texts in schools actually care what’s in the Bible. They will pretend otherwise, but don’t believe their lies. It’s 100% greed.
It’s not that. They already can have their own schools. It’s just they want to take our money to pay for them
But there’s certain things they couldn’t do in the past, if they wanted the fed money. Now that those policies and mandates are going away, they can do whatever they want, they can go hardcore, for lack of a better description.
If you’ve been reading the newspapers over the last year or two, you’ve seen various States try to pass various rules about the Bible or the Ten Commandments. They weren’t doing that in private schools; private schools already could do that, right?
IANAL, but no, for constitutional reasons, as well as getting money from the feds if they don’t do it, versus sacrificing that money if they do do it.
No. They absolutely want to push the bullshit onto the rest of us.
It does seem that way with the tax credit and school choice push. Is the DoE the answer or could it be handled better at the state or regional level?
Is the DoE the answer or could it be handled better at the state or regional level?
My belief is that if we are to be a single nation, then it had to be handled at the federal level by the DoE, and not at the various states level.
At the states level its just an easy prelim/prep for a future civil war.
I’m sorry but what is that tag at the bottom of your post? I tried reading through the link but I couldn’t gather. It’s free use but they can’t assume ownership or endorsement?
I’m sorry but what is that tag at the bottom of your post?
Some info about that …
So would that look like pulling all say from the states and putting all funding, policy, etc. at the federal level?
So would that look like pulling all say from the states and putting all funding, policy, etc. at the federal level?
I’d say funding would be dual-leveled, depending on what is being funded.
Policy mandates at the fed level would be funded with fed dollars. Meal and health programs too.
Things like physical building maintenance and teacher salaries would be at the state level (with help with fed funds for poor states).
That’s mostly how it is now, no?
That’s mostly how it is now, no?
Assume so. 🤷♂️ Don’t know details. Was just responding to your question.
I’m also assuming that would change with the removal of the DoE.
The US Department of Education doesn’t mandate any curriculum from the federal level. States set their own curriculum guidelines.
If you hear someone making this complaint about the federal government dictating what can and can’t be taught in schools, they are either being intentionally disingenuous (in which case they should be called out for it immediately) or they are an idiot who bought this idea being peddled by someone else (in which case they should be enlightened).
Christians (and any other group that wants) can (and do) already have their own private schools.
The US Department of Education doesn’t mandate any curriculum from the federal level. States set their own curriculum guidelines.
Nobody said that is what is currently being done. They do affect a general direction though, keep everyone “on the same page”, via policies/mandates.
From HERE …
Today, ED operates programs that touch on every area and level of education. The Department’s elementary and secondary programs annually serve nearly 18,200 school districts and over 50 million students attending roughly 98,000 public schools and 32,000 private schools. Department programs also provide grant, loan, and work-study assistance to more than 12 million postsecondary students.
The Department carries out its mission in two major ways. First, the Secretary and the Department play a leadership role in the ongoing national dialogue over how to improve the results of our education system for all students. This involves such activities as raising national and community awareness of the education challenges confronting the Nation, disseminating the latest discoveries on what works in teaching and learning, and helping communities work out solutions to difficult educational issues.
Second, the Department pursues its twin goals of access and excellence through the administration of programs that cover every area of education and range from preschool education through postdoctoral research.
Interestingly, I was just trying to have a conversation about this at https://lemmy.world/post/27067695
Curious what people think is the right way to address education in the U.S.
I just want to make two points about the decline in education. One is Reagan, and the attachment of funding dollars for education to property taxes (Prop 13? California?), and the other the emphasis on standardized testing that came under Bush in Florida, and was nationalized under Bush the president.
I think these two Republican (led, Democrats later adopted them) policies were some of the most destructive to our education system.
Absolutely. No Child Left Behind was an unmitigated disaster, and they just refused to let it go for way too long.
Agreed on both. How would funding work then? Should it be handled at the state level, by U.S. regions like New England or the Mid-Atlantic, or should it stay at the federal level?
I wasn’t previously aware, but apparently, Canada leaves it up to their provinces to decide. Interesting that they perform so well when their system sounds similar to what those pushing for state control in the U.S. want.
🤷
I can tell you that the situation is pretty dire.
I think of the graduating at our local HS, Sr’s in 2024, only 12% could do math at their grade level? Might have been worse. Might have been 5%.
This is in Canada?
No Hawaii isn’t in Canda yet, but we’re hoping
#FormerlyAlignedWithTheBritishMonarcy
Whats interesting about Canada is that they have largely decentralized education with success. I wasn’t aware of that until recently.
Hah, yeah recently the Hawaiian monarchy is looking a lot better. We’ve already got the flag ready, maybe Australia or New Zealand will accept us into some sort of broad confederation.
This is for Hawaii, which funds schools at the state level, which one would expect to dodge the problem of rich schools and poor schools based on property taxes, but there’s still a whole lot of difference in school performance that mostly corresponds to rich areas and poor areas.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Hawaii and as I understand it, most that can afford to do so, send their kids to private schools. Is that true?
So the schools are funded kind of centrally versus locally with property taxes?
There are a lot of people spending pretty hefty sums to send their kids to private schools, but the school disparity referenced above is across public schools. Most kids still go to public school.
Schools are funded centrally. I don’t know enough to know how the funds are distributed, but I don’t think the disparity is just corruption sending more money per student to the rich areas. But there are still a lot of things that (on average) can cause disparate results. The best teachers would rather live in nicer areas, rich parents can pay for tutors and extra curriculars, rich parents likely have more access to politicians or administrators to make sure the school is serving their kid, poverty itself is disruptive to learning, etc.
The lesson I take from it isn’t that state funding is a bad idea, but that it’s not a silver bullet to erase the difference in educational opportunity.
I’m not an expert but I don’t think it’s any better it’s just less obvious due to their small population and it’s concentration on the southern border. When you get to rural and more northern areas my understanding is that they have similar problems. One difference is they don’t have the rich actively sabotaging it at every level like we do here.
Good points. Thanks.
Just replace all education with pragerU workbooks and videos obv.
