Department of Education should be ‘DOGE-ed’

The swamp is not drained yet, but the water is getting low enough for us to see all the slithery inhabitants. One of the government agencies that needs to be abolished is the Department of Education. The top-heavy educrats, who have overseen the downward spiral in our education system’s results, should go.

For context, the nation’s teacher’s union, the National Education Association gave its first presidential endorsement ever in 1976. At an annual NEA meeting Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale promised that the Carter administration would form an education department for them. He paid them back for their support, and it has been a disaster. The result has been like a Republican giving the NRA a cabinet post.

At the time, the United States was top-rated in education. We now rank about 30th compared to our peer group. Poland beats us, and that is no joke.

We have dropped to 30th while spending more money per student. Or, as the educrats in D.C. would put it, “Well that’s only 10 spots.”

U.S. student test scores continue to decline, even with grade inflation. Back in the day, grading at my school was severe even with grade inflation. A student once died in our health class, and he was given an F.

ACT scores are at a 30-year low. This is not working, and it starts with the leftist educrats. About the only math questions kids get in school now is: “If there are 20 genders and only two bathrooms, how much racist climate change will that cause?”

The Department of Education spent $268 billion in fiscal year 2024. We need to disband the DOE and let the states have education back. 

A study by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation found that only 36 percent of Americans can pass a basic citizenship test (74 percent of those 65 and older could, while only 19 percent of those 45 and younger could). Educators were embarrassed and noted that this is the worst score on the citizenship test since 1619, when this country was founded.

We are poorly educating our kids, leaving them uneducated, angry and in debt if they go to college. And doing it to ourselves is cruel, just this side of organizing pitbull fighting.

The teachers’ unions have more excuses than students have for not passing. In the old days in Springfield Ohio, you could tell the teacher that the dog ate your homework. Now you can add that a Haitian immigrant ate your dog.

For more than 200 years in our country, we had a great education system, funded purely at a local level. Then D.C. and the unions got involved and made education about themselves and their “woke” agenda. 

At least 90 percent of teachers are Democrats, many of them far left. That is why the Department of Education is essentially a get-out-the-vote and liberal indoctrination arm of the DNC. 

Things changed under Biden. The educrats forced the transgender agenda on students. When I was in school, if we were told we had a class field trip to a drag strip, we felt pretty sure we’d be seeing some cars race. 

Under Biden, it got to where if you had your 12-year-old’s teacher’s conference and it didn’t end with gender reassignment surgery, you’d consider it a success.

They also led the charge at revisionist history and they championed Critical Race Theory. The 1619 Project sought to reframe American history in the most negative light. Left-wing educators forced the destruction of statues across America, purging our culture of Confederate generals, our founders and renaming schools.

In the age of the Internet and porn at the ready, the far right shouldn’t spend time protesting books in the library. To them I would say: The good news is, looking at test scores, kids can’t read books anyway.

“History” was being changed so fast in the last five years that you would never know what is going to happen yesterday.

I went to a very public high school. It was so rough that our school paper had an obituary column. But with my kids, I largely avoided teachers’ unions. My kids went to a ritzy Buckhead private school. When the school officials spanked them, students were well within their rights to ask to dress in a French maid outfit.

The Bidens’ handlers and education administration leaders have failed us, not the hardworking teachers. The politically quarrelsome teachers’ union leaders in D.C. need to realize they are not irreplaceable. I am the product of mostly very public schools. As such, if anyone needs a math teacher, I’m available 26/7.

Ron Hart, a libertarian syndicated op-ed humorist, worked at Goldman Sachs and is an award-winning author and TV/radio commentator. He can be reached at Ron@RonaldHart.com or visit www.RonaldHart.com