Eliminating the U. S. Department of Education. Save big money and improve education at the same time

American Thinker ^ | 04/16/2011 | Frank Ryan

[SeekAndFind]

Cosmetic budget cuts will not solve our nation's debt woes.  Real change is required to right our county.  Waste must be identified, isolated, and eliminated.

One such change is to abolish the U.S. Department of Education.

The Department of Education was established to promote "student achievement and prepare them for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and insuring equal access."

Since 1979 when the Department of Education was created and with the passage of laws regulating education, such as the No Child Left Behind, the result has been an education system where compliance with laws becomes the rule of the day rather than the primary focus being quality education.

While I am not an attorney nor do I profess to understand our Nation's laws, however confusing and contradictory they may be, I do know that Title 20, U.S. Code regulates education.  It is made up of over 75 chapters!  

No Child Left Behind is so comprehensive that the Table of Contents alone is 28 pages! 

Regulations do not educate children!  Teachers and Parents do!

The real issue involved with the creation of the Department of Education involves trust.  It implies that parents, teachers, local officials, state officials, and the entire community cannot be trusted to provide quality education for our children and students.

The "Father of the Common School Movement," Horace Mann (1796-1859), served as the Secretary of the Mass State Board of Education when he successfully argued for "universal public education as the best way to turn the nation's unruly children into disciplined, judicious republican citizens."  He helped create public schools as we know them today.

Despite his experiences in education at the state level, however, it is interesting to note that when Horace Mann was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1848 he did not introduce one piece of legislation arguing for a federal involvement in education.

Unfortunately, with the mass public education system of the past 50 years, all too often the minimum standard has become the benchmark of success, rather than the cutoff for failure.  No Child Left Behind is hardly a piece of legislation that a politician could vote against.  Just the name of the Act itself is intended to invoke support despite the lack of merit of the bill.

Education directed from Washington, D.C. does not work even if it were Constitutional.   

Virtually every study will tell you that the keys to quality education are:

• Parental involvement
• Rewarding education
• Rewarding teachers and providing local autonomy
• Minimize Compliance costs

Parental involvement is the key to the success of any education program.  When a child knows that his or her parents are part of their lives, the value of the education they receive increases substantially.  Yet, in so many cases, parental involvement is difficult to gauge, monitor, and enforce.

The longer term solution to getting more parents involved is to back off parents.  That seems contradictory but, in reality, most parents today are at their limits due to very high costs, taxes, and a government that is already intruding into every aspect of their lives.  The answer is not a child care tax credit but to back off on government spending so that taxes can be cut so that one parent can support his/her family comfortably. 

Another crucial aspect of rebuilding America's education system is to reward education.  Making a student with an A average and great test scores qualify for a scholarship mainly due to parental income is silly.  Financial need is but one aspect of a scholarship.  Performance is the most important aspect.  Making all students winners may seem like you we are being kind, but once the student gets into the work force, it is about performance, experience, critical thinking, and abilities.  In an education system in which you cannot fail, it also means that you cannot succeed.

We must encourage superior performance at every level of school from elementary to high school to college.  We need to greatly expand the ability of the school to tailor the education to the student using the judgment of teachers and parents.  That is best done locally and with the parent's involvement.

Our teachers deserve great respect.  They deserve to be paid fairly.  They are a great national asset.  Making teachers spend more time complying with laws rather than teaching seems counterproductive at best.  I trust teachers to do that which is best for the student.  

Giving local autonomy, greater parental involvement, rewarding students for performance, and insisting upon rewarding quality teachers while ridding ourselves of those not qualified, our children will truly succeed.  We will not have to worry about them being left behind, because they will be leading us.

What separates a great nation from one in decline is the quality of the education that its citizens receive.  Our very freedoms, our success, and our wealth are influenced by our students, the education they receive, and the ability to determine for ourselves our future careers.  That is not done from Washington, D.C.  Make a real difference -- eliminate the U.S. Department of Education.  Cosmetic changes will not fix our nation's budget woes.  Only real change will.

Frank Ryan, CPA specializes in corporate restructuring and lectures on ethics for the state CPA societies.  Frank is a retired Colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve and served in Iraq and briefly in Afghanistan.  He is on numerous boards of publicly traded and non-profit organizations.  He can be reached at FRYAN1951@aol.com.

[Clintonfatigued]

I’d like to hear what the Homeschooling community has to say about this?

[Defend Liberty]

The Department of Education should be eliminated since regulating education is not an enumerated power granted to Congress in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution and therefore is a power reserved to the states or to the people per the 10th Amendment.

Then again the EPA, FCC,FDA,DHHS,BATFE and the Department of Agriculture should also be eliminated as regulating the environment, communications, food, drugs, health, tobacco,alcohol,firearms and agriculture are not enumerated powers granted to Congress.

[pallis]

It needs to be done as quickly as we can get politicians with the chiclets to do it. Dump No Child Left Behind too. Dump the NEA. Get the schools back under the control of the districts and states, and stop making public education an entitlement. Parents are responsible for educating their children. If they want to use public schools to do it, they need to be responsible for what is happening in the public schools.

[wintertime]

Parental involvement is the key to the success of any education program.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Parental involvement is far far far more than the “key”. Parental involvement **is** the education!

Please think about the academically successful homeschoolers and institutionalized children that you know. If you were to ask the parents and the children of both groups ( home and institutionally educated) about their home habits, values, and activities, you will very likely find that they are nearly identical. If you ask the institutionalized child about the **time** spent in homework at the kitchen table or his desk at **home**, you will likely find that there is NO difference in the amount of time spent is equal to that of the homeschoooler!

If you know an academically successful child, that child is afterschooled or homeschooled. I, personally, have never met a single exception. I found this to be true even with immigrant families. They, too, have found tutoring in the form of cousins, study groups, older children, neighbors, and friends.

So?...If you disagree with me, please provide the links that show exactly where learning happens. Is it in the classroom or at home? As many times I have asked this question, over the years, no educator or professor of education has ever provided me with the studies

If most learning happens in the home, then maybe the successful children would enjoy even more success if they spent more time at home. Those children from dysfunctional homes need an institutional setting that attempts to duplicate what happens in home of functional families. KIPP schools seem to be doing that.

[matthew fuller]

Sounds like a good, but miniscule start. We also need to consider dumping the HHS (78 Billion/2010), HUD (43.7B/2010) DOEnergy (24.1B/2010), DOJ (27.7B/2010), FDA (2.3B/2010), BATFE (1.12B/2010), EPA (10.5B/2010), TSA (part of HSA)(8.1B/2010), and disassemble Homeland Security Administration, which controls 22 Federal agencies (55.1B/2010).

[Scythian]

Why in the world would anybody want to rid themselves of the NEA, look at the wonderful recommended reading on the NEA.ORG official site.

http://www.nea.org/tools/17231.htm

[13Sisters76]

Eliminating the federal agencies would be the smartest thing that DC could do...don’t hold yer breath waiting. They accomplish nothing, cost huge dollars creating worthless jobs for the under-educated, underworked and overpaid, and exist to torment private citizens and small businesses. Eliminate them!

Side note- since the inception of the DOE our kids have taken the long slide to educational mediocrity, falling (most recently) to nos. 24 and 26 in math and science skills. We are now behind the Slovak Republic. Shame!

[BenLurkin]

There never should have been a Federal Department of Education in the first place.

[wintertime]

While I fully support the elimination of the Department of Education on the federal level, we must move toward complete privatization of all education. To do that we must build a culture where parents and students are motivated to take responsibility for their own education.

How to do that?

Answer: Charles Murray is right! We need qualifying exams on every level from first grade to graduate school!

1) Any child of any age should be permitted to take the GED or similar private exam. If they pass, the local high school would give them an official high school diploma. The sooner children finish high school, the fewer teachers and buildings that would be needed.

2) Starting in first grade, if a child passes a qualifying exam that proves he has mastery of a subject, he should be moved to the next level. These subjects could be provided on-line. They could even be free if the lecturer accepted advertising. The sooner children finish high school, the fewer teachers and buildings that would be needed.

3) Qualifying exams could greatly reduce the cost of college and graduate school as well, and allow children to move from school to the work force sooner and with far less debt. This would allow them to start families and get on with their lives and their careers. Every extra year spent in the work force instead of school can add up to a very significant amount of money.

4) A system of qualifying exams would also encourage the growth of a system of private tutoring.

[gitmo]

Parental involvement is the key to the success of any education program. When a child knows that his or her parents are part of their lives, the value of the education they receive increases substantially. Yet, in so many cases, parental involvement is difficult to gauge, monitor, and enforce.

The last thing our local schools in Charlotte want is parental involvement. They told us it wasn't fair to the other kids if we spent time with our children in education.

[calex59]

Yes, and take the EPA, FDA, BATFE, IRS and DHS along also.

[BobL]

“I found this to be true even with immigrant families. They, too, have found tutoring in the form of cousins, study groups, older children, neighbors, and friends.”

You’re right about that. Immigrant parents look at public schools as basically daycare - it’s the after school activities (i.e., not sports) that actually EDUCATE their kids. Often it is through ‘learning centers’ such as Sylvan and Kumon where parents pay money to the actual school (rather than to government) and demand AND GET educated kids back.

Asian kids, in particular, run circles around non-Asians, even in dumpy schools like San Fran and New York City - why - the parents haven’t been here long enough to be BRAINWASHED to think that their ‘wonderful’ public schools will make doctors-to-be out of their twerps - instead THOSE PARENTS know full well that public schools are an OBSTACLE that has to be overcome to get a decent education.

[BobL]

“The last thing our local schools in Charlotte want is parental involvement. They told us it wasn’t fair to the other kids if we spent time with our children in education. “

So you learned the hard way, but you did learn. Public schools LOVE parental involvement. But they have a very narrow definition of it. Their definition includes the following:

1) Bake sales, chaperons on field trips, coming to PTA meetings to get brainwashed.

2) Teaching your kids what the teacher was too lazy (or not capable of) teaching them that day.

What they DO NOT WANT, ever:

1) Educating your kids so that they are ahead of the other kids. ESPECIALLY in math and reading. Do not EVERY try that stunt.

2) Having ANY SAY at all regarding curriculum selection. You parents are WAY TOO DUMB to be involved in something that important. Just suck it up when they choose Everyday Math for your kids...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr1qee-bTZI

[prof.h.mandingo]

You are right but the courts have perverted the “common welfare” clause to cover anything Congress wants. The clause was supposed to simply cover the enumerated powers. The courts got hold of it and the alphabet soup agencies are its spawn.

[bronxville]

Jimmah Carter started the DoE so they could implement the UN’s dogma to our kids.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks SeekAndFind.

[Monorprise]

The department and all the laws and funding that are so attached Never had any business existing.

Abolish it with all do hast, include its abolition in the budget bill. In fact put the abolition of every program in that Bill and sit on it. The Democrats can either accept the Government we are willing to pay for(Or less), or they can let it shut down and/or the debt ceiling force compliance.

Either way we and our children won’t accept the bill for this unwanted and unconstitutional monstrosity they call a Federal Government.

[Defend Liberty]

You are right but the courts have perverted the “common welfare” clause to cover anything Congress wants. The clause was supposed to simply cover the enumerated powers. The courts got hold of it and the alphabet soup agencies are its spawn.

Then it is up to the people to remind government the people are the final authority on the Constitution and not the judicial branch as the former is the fourth and most powerful branch of government.

[UCFRoadWarrior]

A great idea....but you will not get enough GOP on board to eliminate the Dept of Ed

George W Bush, along with Ted Kennedy, pushed No Child Left Behind....that program did nothing but increase the Dept of Ed.

Any program affiliated with No Child Left Behind is originated from the Dep of Ed/No Child Left Behind

Too many in the GOP sponsor No Child, and the other big government education programs like standardized testing and grading of schools.