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!
So increase DoE funding and decouple schools from property tax funding?
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.
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.
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
The problem is that smart people don’t vote republican, and the republicans need more brown noses.
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Interesting. Really leaning into that “uneducated people are easier to control”
“The proles are our only hope”
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 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.
Krasnov still hard at it
Can he just do this with an EO? Can the country ignore the EO until Congress ratifies it?
I assume it’ll be contested
No and yes. The country should be ignoring the President and congress should be defunding him. Starve the beast amiriiight!?
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.
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.
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.
