Bill to Shut U.S. Education Department Introduced in Congress

originally posted by: windword
a reply to: darkbake

“Unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. should not be in charge of our children’s intellectual and moral development,”

There's your FAKE NEWS, right there. The Department of Education neither imposes "intellectual" nor "morality" tests.

No, but teachers certainly influence both. I'm a teacher, and I hate the over-regulations that make it difficult to teach. I'm lucky if I can spend a few days on some of the most important periods in history.

a reply to: darkbake

"We wouldn’t have a federal department to administer Pell Grants to students, there wouldn’t be any oversight over states when they break civil rights laws, there wouldn’t be a department to check on rampant inequality between low-income school districts and wealthy districts, we would have inconsistent education data, as the quality of data would vary among the states, there would be more gender discrimination within schools,there would be no way to hold schools accountable for the funds they receive."

These points are ridiculous nonsense.

Elimination of federal grants and loans would be a huge benefit to the average college student, not a hardship. Colleges would have to competitively price their tuitions and be forced to return to the days when tuition was mostly based on what the average 18 year old could make working a summer job. The system we presently have sees kids paying 10+ times what they should be paying and taking the expense in the form of student loans that are an anchor around their nexks for 20+ years.

The Education Department isn't a law enforcement agency, so violation of civil rights laws shouldn't even be on their radar. If schools are breaking the law, LEO agencies are plentiful and not going anywhere.

The results of the ED's tactic to fight income inequality in schools has amounted to flushing money down a toilet while applying massive downward pressure on "students who have" rather than doing anything intelligent to uplift "students who have not."

"Inconsistent education DATA"!?!?! Huh? It's about the students, stupid imbecile who was quoted in this article. Your "data" isn't worth the money we've wasted on it.

"More gender discrimination" within schools... again, that's a civil law issue, not an Education Department issue. Yet another example of a bloated federal government that has overstepped their role and needs to have their chain yanked hard enough to snap their neck if they don't instantly return to heel where they belong.

Elimination of the federal Education Department will also remove a lot of those funds they're so worried about accountability over. In other words, it won't be the federal government's circus or their monkeys anymore, and it will return to where it belongs: each individual state. Let the state lawmakers and education secretaries be answerable to the people, PERIOD.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: Metallicus
a reply to: darkbake

States have a vested interest in the success of their education programs. The Fed's use the Education Department like all their departments...politics and control.

I fully support giving more power to the states. The bloated Federal Government needs to trim the fat.

I don't know here. I fully understand the sentiment of not trusting the feds, but I distrust the states even more. States have less oversight, and less talent. Florida has test scores worse than some 3rd world nations, Texas is on the verge of losing accredation in their science programs, Illinois and Kansas have started cutting the school year pretty significantly because they can't afford to keep their schools open.

Most states haven't proven competent in the education department. North Dakota has proven average, Massachusetts and Connecticuit have proven they know how to do things right.

Do we want to devolve into 50 nations, where some states simply don't accept the other states degrees? Louisiana has a serious literacy problem, what if someone moves from Louisiana to a state with an actual future, only to learn they have to go to school all over again before they can even attend college? I just don't see how leaving things in the hands of the states actually has the potential to work out. Worse yet, you put it in the hands of cities (which is where most of it is now anyways), and you doom towns to mediocrity because they don't have the ability to teach what they need, or even the ability to recognize what they need.

The feds aren't much better, but they're at least in the position to take the best ideas from everyone and I say this as someone who doesn't like the DoE. What's the solution? Personally, I think it involves a mix of everything, city/state/fed because none of them have proven competent to run something on their own. Though my argument basically means... keep doing what we're already doing because we already have that mix. Yet some states are still dropping the ball.

I have not seen where education is re-markedly better since the DOE. We've literally spent trillions. For that amount of money, I'd expect every kid should be taking calculus in fifth grade but instead we have public schools that are glorified juvie detention centers and kids who can barely spell their own ghetto ass names.

Much of the issues you state are driven by circumstances that the Feds can't fix. By in large, public schools perform pretty well. Where you see issues is usually in areas that have high rates of poverty and broken homes. As a result, the schools perform poorly because they are dealing with the lowest rung of society. Schools in middle class and upper class areas perform very well because the students are coming from solid homes with high expectations by in large.

Here in Chicago the schools are broke because of teachers union pensions. There is plenty of money, but the school system nor the tax payers can afford to pay 80% pensions so teachers can retire at 55.

The Feds can't fix any of this stuff as they are all local issues. I'd rather 95 cents on the dollar be given to the states directly to address these issues the best way they see fit ratherh than say 20 cents on the dollar after the DOE pisses away the money before giving it to the states.

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
Elimination of federal grants and loans would be a huge benefit to the average college student, not a hardship. Colleges would have to competitively price their tuitions and be forced to return to the days when tuition was mostly based on what the average 18 year old could make working a summer job. The system we presently have sees kids paying 10+ times what they should be paying and taking the expense in the form of student loans that are an anchor around their nexks for 20+ years.

While you can argue this, you also have to recognize the other side of the equation, people were paid substantially more back when a summer job could pay for college. When you could do this back in 1975 for example, you would typically be getting more than a minimum wage job, say along the lines of double minimum wage. On top of that, those wages went further. Rather than saying they could work minimum wage, it would be much more along the lines of making $35/hour today in a summer job which is along the lines of about $17,000 in wages post tax for the summer.

Yes, college is more expensive and tuition could stand to come down a bit, but it's the wage side of things where everything has really come apart. At the university I'm currently attending, yearly tuition is about $11,000/year, if you live in the dorms I think it's another $7000. Pretty close to that $17k figure. The wages for students though simply haven't kept up, most students I know on campus are thrilled if they can even land $10/hour for a summer job. You simply can't bring tuition down to the point where students can work a summer job for $10/hour and pay for an entire years worth of room, board, classes, and books off of that. $10/hour for 3 months barely even covers 3 months rent.

originally posted by: windword
a reply to: darkbake

“Unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. should not be in charge of our children’s intellectual and moral development,”

There's your FAKE NEWS, right there. The Department of Education neither imposes "intellectual" nor "morality" tests.

I have to disagree here. Schools have absolutely become societal indoctrination centers that challenge traditional morality at every juncture. Also, by liberal definition, "intellectualism" is considered the sole purvey of the education system. The system judges you by how many letters you have after your name.

originally posted by: carewemust
So Betsy DeVos was installed as the person in charge of dismantling her own department?

Exactly. It's not the only Dept. where this is happening either.

What happens when you attack a fortress from the outside??? It costs countless lives, resources and time and you still may never breach the outer wall.

What happens when you have just one person on the inside of that fortress however??? They open the gate for you and you take down the stronghold with ease.

a reply to: Aazadan

My state university engineering degree was $1250 a semester in the late 90s. Working from late May to mid August at a minimum wage job paid for that. I'm sorry you fell into the trap of "because everyone qualifies for some manner of subsidy, we're jacking tuitions as high as we can."

I lived at home during college, driving my old truck 65 miles to class at 6 AM and 65 miles back to home sometimes at 10 PM if I had a late lab class. I also worked on the weekend and took some student loans out to cover books and whatnot. But please don't portray this like there's any logical or defensible reason other than "because kids are dumb enough to take out massive loans and the government is pandering to our system enough to offer them" to explain tuition rates tripling and quadrupling over the past 15 years.

originally posted by: IgnoranceIsntBlisss
Down with the Department of Social Engineering.

c'mon, you would throw Bannon out of his white house job

a reply to: Edumakated

I could link test scores if you would like. But I don't know if I want to go that far off topic. Basically, from the data I've seen, most races have been performing much better on SAT's over the last 30ish years (I forget the exact date). Whites showed about 1% improvement, Asians a larger amount, and so on. The only racial group that has been performing worse (and much worse at that) are blacks. I attribute that to black culture and the demise of inner cities where blacks mostly live rather than any actual racial component, it's all due to socioeconomic status.

The thing is though, if you argue that the feds are powerless to fight back in what has essentially been a collapse of culture, which has lead to a collapse in people giving a damn about their own educations... what do you expect states or cities to do? They have even fewer resources and are still just as powerless.

If you focus on the middle and up, or even the poor and up in cultures where people want to improve (for example, many poor immigrants work hard and take education seriously) our schools are doing pretty damn good. Our PISA results are proof of that once you learn to read the tests. As I said though, some states are really screwing the pooch. Florida submitted their scores a few years ago and did abysmal. Texas hasn't been brave enough to submit theirs yet, but some states don't want to accept high school transfers from Texas when it comes to science so they have some developing issues.

If it's just a matter of money, then I can almost agree... we can cut the DOE out of it entirely. When the DOE was created, the department was run by just 1 person, there's nothing inherent to overseeing education that requires a massive bureaucracy, these days they just write checks and I don't think that's what we need from a federal department, others can handle that just fine. I think we need leadership and education standards, not an ATM, and the DOE currently provides neither.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
Elimination of federal grants and loans would be a huge benefit to the average college student, not a hardship. Colleges would have to competitively price their tuitions and be forced to return to the days when tuition was mostly based on what the average 18 year old could make working a summer job. The system we presently have sees kids paying 10+ times what they should be paying and taking the expense in the form of student loans that are an anchor around their nexks for 20+ years.

While you can argue this, you also have to recognize the other side of the equation, people were paid substantially more back when a summer job could pay for college. When you could do this back in 1975 for example, you would typically be getting more than a minimum wage job, say along the lines of double minimum wage. On top of that, those wages went further. Rather than saying they could work minimum wage, it would be much more along the lines of making $35/hour today in a summer job which is along the lines of about $17,000 in wages post tax for the summer.

Yes, college is more expensive and tuition could stand to come down a bit, but it's the wage side of things where everything has really come apart. At the university I'm currently attending, yearly tuition is about $11,000/year, if you live in the dorms I think it's another $7000. Pretty close to that $17k figure. The wages for students though simply haven't kept up, most students I know on campus are thrilled if they can even land $10/hour for a summer job. You simply can't bring tuition down to the point where students can work a summer job for $10/hour and pay for an entire years worth of room, board, classes, and books off of that. $10/hour for 3 months barely even covers 3 months rent.

In 1960, the University of Pennsylvania's tuition was $1250 per year. Room and board was $950/yr. Inflation adjusted to 2016, that $1250 tuition should be $10,290. Do you know what tuition was in 2016? $43,800! More than FOUR TIMES the inflation adjusted amount.

These schools have not reigned in their costs because we now have student loans that will finance anyone and unlimited demand. Second, the schools have turned into glorified country clubs with rock climbing walls, gyms, fancy apartments, spas, and all kinds of other BS completely unnecessary in relation to actually getting an education. Third, the unlimited financing has allowed these schools to bloat themselves with unnecessary administrative positions.

Universities have ZERO incentive to lower costs. Some of the Ivies could literally be FREE to all students given the sizes of their endowments. Harvard has a $40 billion endowment.

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
a reply to: Aazadan

My state university engineering degree was $1250 a semester in the late 90s. Working from late May to mid August at a minimum wage job paid for that. I'm sorry you fell into the trap of "because everyone qualifies for some manner of subsidy, we're jacking tuitions as high as we can."

I lived at home during college, driving my old truck 65 miles to class at 6 AM and 65 miles back to home sometimes at 10 PM if I had a late lab class. I also worked on the weekend and took some student loans out to cover books and whatnot. But please don't portray this like there's any logical or defensible reason other than "because kids are dumb enough to take out massive loans and the government is pandering to our system enough to offer them" to explain tuition rates tripling and quadrupling over the past 15 years.

Fuel costs, living costs. Not everyone gets to leech off their parents and have them provide fuel to and from class. What about food? If I did the napkin math right, you should have made about $2600 before taxes during the summer, yet your tuition would have used $2500. That's more than your post tax take home.

And as you mentioned, you still took loans.

Also, purchasing power was twice as high in the 90's as it is today, yet minimum wage is only 40% higher.

originally posted by: Aazadan
it's all due to socioeconomic status.

I disagree. The more someone is freely given something, the less they appreciate and value that something. The socioeconomic argument isn't holding water anymore. In reality, we've created a kept class (comprised of members of every race) that live off the teat of those of us with responsbility. It's called entitlement and it is a cancer.

a reply to: Aazadan

I lived at my parents' ranch, believe me there was no "leeching." I worked on weekends, every weekend. It's all about priorities... I went to college to receive an education, not a social sunshine and farts experience.

originally posted by: Edumakated
In 1960, the University of Pennsylvania's tuition was $1250 per year. Room and board was $950/yr. Inflation adjusted to 2016, that $1250 tuition should be $10,290. Do you know what tuition was in 2016? $43,800! More than FOUR TIMES the inflation adjusted amount.

I'm aware. I'm also aware that inflation adjusted amounts based on CPI are flawed because the way we calculate inflation from one year to the next changed significantly in the early 80's under Reagan. It's resulted in a situation where the inflation numbers we use have little basis in reality. Instead of using a handy CPI chart you instead need to start comparing purchasing power, such as the number of hours one needs to work in order to buy something. In the 60's one could pay for a months rent with 4-5 days of work, today that number is closer to 13. A car used to be 3 months labor, today it's a year. And so on.

Yes, inflation is part of it but stagnant/declining purchasing power is a much bigger part. I attend school entirely off of Pell Grants, it more than fully covers my tuition. Not every school costs $40,000/year. My current experience is similar to Burdmans, my tuition is almost exactly covered. But tuition isn't the expensive part of college, the expensive part is racking up years worth of living expenses. It varies by exactly where you are, but where I am for example, living makes up about 60% of my costs, school is only 40%. It's the same problem the rest of the country is facing, purchasing power is too low and the rents are too damn high. The only difference is that students can take out loans of varying interest rates to get by, while non students have much higher interest credit cards to try and bridge that same gap.

Universities have ZERO incentive to lower costs. Some of the Ivies could literally be FREE to all students given the sizes of their endowments. Harvard has a $40 billion endowment.

I'm aware. Most schools don't have those types of endowments though.

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
a reply to: Aazadan

I lived at my parents' ranch, believe me there was no "leeching." I worked on weekends, every weekend. It's all about priorities... I went to college to receive an education, not a social sunshine and farts experience.

So you actually worked full time in the summer and part time during the school year? Then still needed loans?

Also, I attend college for an education as well. That's why I'm in a program where the professors forbid working during the school year, and my typical schedule is 25 hours/week in class, and 55 hours/week of homework. Then personal projects in my free time on top of that. I put in a solid 12 hours/day every day and more on the weekends... I literally would not physically be able to work with my academic schedule. Then again, my school doesn't have the "college experience" either, which I think is a good thing.

The education department was destroyed by the republicans who appointed Bill Bennet to revamp it. The idea of the rich were to dumb down normal Americans so they would be easier to control. It has worked well. If you want to level the playing field require the rich kids to go to the same schools as the poor. No private schools or home schooling. That will get the ball rolling. Bussing was an attempt to do this but that was short sighted and didn't force the super rich to have to have their child educated alongside a ditch diggers kids.

originally posted by: damwel
The education department was destroyed by the republicans who appointed Bill Bennet to revamp it. The idea of the rich were to dumb down normal Americans so they would be easier to control. It has worked well. If you want to level the playing field require the rich kids to go to the same schools as the poor. No private schools or home schooling. That will get the ball rolling. Bussing was an attempt to do this but that was short sighted and didn't force the super rich to have to have their child educated alongside a ditch diggers kids.

Nope.

You are crazy if you think middle/upper class are going to send their kids to schools with hoodrats. There is a reason people generally move to suburbs and expensive areas when they can afford it. Ask any Realtor. SCHOOLS. The schools generally reflect the value of the parents. If the public schools start getting brought down, those parents will just homeschool or send their kids to private.

The reason schools in poor neighborhoods are bad is because poor kids generally come from broken homes. Why would any parent subject their child to that nonsense by choice?

a reply to: damwel

Actually the poorest areas should have the best schools. They qualify for the most government money and programs.

These areas either: 1) Do not have qualified administration taking advantage of all the program money they are entitled to or 2) Have people who are taking advantage of these funds and not using them properly.

a reply to: damwel

I don't think that's going to fix it. Even if you could somehow convince those with the resources to send their children to better schools, to send them to worse ones, education is only one factor in a persons success and drive. A much bigger component is social. Surrounding yourself with other like minded individuals who want to succeed, will put in the work, and have connections. While the well off do use schools for these networking purposes, it's not the only area, and it's one they'll pay less attention to if you even things out.

For example, classes as Harvard aren't actually any better than other universities, by several metrics they're probably not good enough these days due to the no fail policies prevalent in many majors. But, it allows people who were able to pass the bar of a difficult enterance exam to network with each other.

If you take the elitism out of the schools, you won't take it out of these families other activities. On the other hand, with lots of studying and a little luck, the ordinary person can break their way into schools. It's much harder to work your way into a private party where everyone is gathering.

There is always going to be an elite, a top 1%. Trying to tear them down doesn't do anything productive. Instead you should be looking at how to raise the bottom up. To make the bottom 10% more competitive and more successful. This is the real challenge and the DOE is powerless to intervene because some people just don't believe in education. Inner city kids largely don't care, and neither do their families. Many middle class don't care either, we have a contingent on these boards for example who are business owners and brag about the fact that they'll never hire someone with a college (and someones not even a high school) education. Instead they want their applicants to have "street smarts", because books and classrooms are indoctination. Those are the types of people that make it hard to educate.

The only answer to that problem that anyone has been able to propose so far is segregation and to kick these people out of the classroom. This has some serious ethical issues though because it's punishing the kid for the failures of the parent, and all but ensures that that persons children will meet the same fate which in turn reestablishes a caste system by birth. It also ends up being financially draining because society will have to pay for that person, either through prison or welfare.

Good idea! Local control has always been best for education decisions. One size simply does not fit all and each area has it's own unique needs, which runs counter to the idea of control at a federal level IMO.

As it is, decisions are being made by what amounts to a servant of the unions instead of the children and it will always be that way when votes are on the line. The elite don't even use the public education system, yet they and the unions control the system that's so bad, they won't use it themselves.