2024 Republicans want to eliminate the Education Department. What would that look like?

jeffw@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 545 points –
2024 Republicans want to eliminate the Education Department. What would that look like?
thehill.com

Multiple Republican presidential candidates made it clear at this week’s debate that the Department of Education is in danger if they are elected.

“Let’s shut down the head of the snake, the Department of Education,” Vivek Ramaswamy said. “Take that $80 billion, put it in the hands of parents across this country.”

Conservatives see the department, which has more than 4,400 employees and in its current form dates back to 1979 after first being established in 1867, as a prime example of Washington’s meddling in Americans’ lives. The time has come to “shut down the Federal Department of Education,” former Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday.

But what would it mean to actually shutter the massive agency?

How could the department be eliminated?

Killing the Department of Education (DOE) would be easier said than done.

Conservatives have said since the creation of the department they want to get rid of it. From President Ronald Reagan and his Education secretary to President Trump and his own, Republicans have decried the department’s existence but failed to abolish it.

That is because the decision to do so is not only up to the president and would have to go through Congress.

“There would have to be some legislation to specifically outline this, but I do think it would need to have the support of the executive branch and, obviously, this is a Cabinet-level agency, so I think having the president — would have to take a leadership role and help to make sure that the proposal is carefully crafted,” said Jonathan Butcher, the Will Skillman senior research fellow in education policy at The Heritage Foundation, which supports nixing the DOE.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) proposed such legislation in 2021 and reintroduced it earlier this year.

“Unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., should not be in charge of our children’s intellectual and moral development,” Massie said two years ago. “States and local communities are best positioned to shape curricula that meet the needs of their students. Schools should be accountable. Parents have the right to choose the most appropriate educational opportunity for their children, including home school, public school or private school.”

DOE did not respond to The Hill’s request for comment.

DOE’s duties would be absorbed by other federal agencies

DOE has an enormous number of responsibilities, including handling student loans, investigating complaints against schools and tracking education progress across the country.

None of the 2024 candidates during Wednesday’s debate detailed how they would handle eliminating it, but conservatives have longed to see many of its tasks either completely eliminated or absorbed into other departments.

“For example, the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Education. I think that any duplicate responsibilities that it shares with the Department of Justice should be eliminated, and then the rest of that office should go to the Department of Justice,” Butcher said.

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Got to make these people as dumb as possible so they'll believe anything

That plan is clearly working flawlessly in many parts of this country. There are more people alive today that believe in mythological deities, or that the earth is flat than at any other point in human history.

By population percentage we we seem going in the right direction, but the same old bullshit continues to be effective at pulling the wool over the eyes of the average rubes who are coopted by religion or social dogma before education can get to them.

There are more people alive today that believe in mythological deities, or that the earth is flat than at any other point in human history.

In absolute terms? Maybe. There’s more people alive today than there ever have been.

In relative terms, i.e. fraction of believers to non-believers? There is no way in Hera’s great grassy brassiere I’m believing that without sauce.

That is why I said on a population percentage basis we appear to be trending in the right direction.

They want private schools, which basically means not everyone will actually go to school if this happens.

Or parents will go into debt to put their kids through K-12.

Or they put their kids in a cheap “school” without regulations and can be abused or whatever while the parents have to go to work

Or be home schooled

Or they have to go into the labor force early

All of these are terrible options

That's very literally what they want.

They want to make education something that's only available, with any quality, to those with money.

From there it's only a matter of time until you're back to a feudal state, with an ownership class and a worker class and a vast gulf between them. Where the only way out of that life is an education that they will make sure that you and your children and grandchildren can never afford.

Education is the first target because an uneducated populace is a more desperate, and more easily manipulated populace. They can be both made fully dependent on the upper class as well as more easily influenced (through deception, fear, and token incentives) to support measures to perpetuate that system.

In other words, your typical middle to lower class GOP voters already.

And for now, the GOP and the interests they serve currently still need some of these people to go along with their plans.

Until they get to the point in their plan where they can do what they want with no regard for the people, making more people less educated makes things easier for them.

Also means all the antidiscrimination rules no longer apply. The situation is right now a private religious school can pretty much hire and fire whomever they want for whatever reason. And this also kills tenure, which I am not sure is a system worth saving but at the same time I don't trust the GOP to replace it with something better.

And in certain states you dont even need to be credentialed to teach at private schools

I assume they want the states to have full autonomy over their education for starters. RIP kids in the south, they'll never even be taught how badly they've been screwed.

They want school choice, where parents take their school funding vouchers to charter schools, so they can segregate their children from the "less-fortunate" and "woke" (read people of color) and teach them all about the whitewashed history of the world and nothing about climate, healthcare, or gender and sexuality.

No joke, read this:

https://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf

There's an entire section on the department of education and what they plan to do.

Read at least the Forward. It's disgusting and important that voters know exactly what the Republicans plan to do if they win the next election.

Worth it to continue reading until you get to the part where the founding fathers would have wanted you to be a good Christian and not choose whatever life is best for your family, but then in the next paragraph also state that only the family can choose what is right for themselves.

Couldn't make it much further because I don't want to be angry on a beautiful Monday, but knowing they couldnt keep their ideology straight for 2 paragraphs is all I need.

It's absolutely filled with contradictions. Should the government have more power or shouldn't it? Do you want to protect children or don't you? Do personal freedoms matter or don't they?

It gets as specific as one section claiming to get rid of the department of homeland security, then a following section wanting to expand it for border control.

There's no real policy, it's just "anti-woke" nonsense.

charter schools do provide a reliable and well rounded educational experience. public schools are rather dependent on the public

In a report from The Heritage Foundation back in 2020, the group estimated billions would be saved …

in a better world, it wouldn’t matter what the heritage foundation thinks. they’re a conservative propaganda machine that pushes climate change denial, transphobia, and voter fraud claims. it’s dishonest reporting to cite them without mentioning their track record and credibility.

Someone should tell the Heritage Foundation that we could save hundreds of billions of tax dollars per year if we just completely eliminated the Defense department. I mean, who cares about consequences when you have all those S A V I N G S, am I right?

Nope, the Republicans want to increase the military budget by a huge margin and eliminate the department of homeland security, department of education, the FDA, the EPA, the NIH, CDC, and more.

See here:

https://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf

It's about consolidating power under the executive. Too much bureaucracy means too many people to stop your bad ideas from going through.

There’s definitely a good argument to be had for splitting up the beast of Homeland Security back to its original parts. Its creation was an overreaction to 9/11 that sacrificed privacy, checks and balances, and possibly even homeland security. I understand the efficiencies of scale having one overall organization in control of everything from various secret police to spying to electronic espionage to criminal investigation, but that doesn’t make it a good idea. See various authoritarian and repressive regimes

Totally agree. It’s a Koch-funded propaganda machine.

In a better world the Heritage Foundation would not exist at all.

DOE’s duties will be absorbed by other departments

Name one. The real problem is this mainstream media let’s these assholes run with such irresponsible statements.

Then if they name one, ask them how much it would cost to reorg and run over there. Anything more than "free" is already too much, according to them.

They'll say dept of energy, and then try to shut it down, too.

Just another thing the Republicans want to eliminate without any forethought or planning for what comes after. And just like their 'repeal' of ACA, they will cry for years that this needs to happen, and they've got a plan to handle it. Only to have it all blown up in their faces once they actually have the opportunity to make it happen.

The Republican party is a dog chasing a car. If it ever catches the car, they'll fuckin get run over.

It will look like that scientific knowledge survey they did in subsaharan africa. People won't know that the earth orbits around the sun.

This isn't hyperbole, they won't teach science if they can avoid it.

I got to experience evangelical science indoctrination as a child, and they literally do not want science taught. It contradicts the pop up books.

One of the first acts a burgeoning Fascist State takes

is to close the Schools and Universities

Happens every time

I still don't understand how this would close any schools or universities. The public school and state university system has been here since the 1600s. Other than e.g. military academies, what schools do the feds run? Not many. They slosh a lot of money around, but it isn't clear to me that it's been a net positive in the 40 years it's been active, judging by effects on tuition, student debt, etc.

There's a lot of dumb rhetoric (and people) behind some of these calls to end the DoE, but the schools survived for 300+ years before it existed.

It wouldn't.

The problem is more that this would give states absolute authority when it comes to what is and isn't taught in schools (it actually goes further than that but I'm at work, look up what laws and acts the DoE is responsible for).

This is more or less fine for states with massive populations as those typically lean blue. I don't see the left suddenly switching to an anti science rhetoric

Red states? Science is replaced with religion. If you can't see why that's a problem then your reasons for disputing this are suspect.

So is the goal to revert the education system back to the way it was in 1600s?

If so, I accuse you of witchcraft! Prepare to defend yourself in court!

Continuation of their Starve the Beast policies that they've been pushing for some 4 decades now.

In short, they cut funding for a department because they claim it is too expensive. There is a limit to how much can be cut before services suffer. That is true for anything - workers don't work for free, and equipment and supplies cost money. So then after they cut funding, they then declare that the department isn't meeting their goals and should be cut. They are setting up these departments to fail and then use that excuse to try to eliminate them altogether. The latest push is to kill the Department of Education, but over the years Republicans have been playing this game with the Post Office, the IRS, Amtrak, the EPA and a bunch of other "unnecessary" departments.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast

Be educated in what these clowns are trying to do because unlike the Left which has an attention plan of a goldfish, these conservatives play the long-game. They have been pushing these awful ideas since Reagan (and some even before that).

They want government to fail and create chaos and they actively try to push polices that will do it.

This is definitely one of those places where it’s easy to get frustrated with rural conservative voters, voting against their own best interests.

Kids in a state like mine already have a huge advantage because we value education and we fund it better. We also can afford to do so.

Conservative states already have less opportunity for their kids, by interfering and limiting their education. Those kids are already disadvantaged because many areas can’t afford adequate funding. I understand authoritarian politicians wanting power and control, but how can parent vote for limiting their kids’ future like that. Department of Education helps fund those schools, while also requiring equal opportunity and requires it be an actual education. Again, I understand politicians spreading divisiveness and outrage to control the populace, but how do parents firstly fall for the BS, and secondly vote against accepting “free” funding to improve their kids’ education?

DoE is one of those “transfer of wealth” programs where blue states pay more, and red states take more. If I don’t mind paying extra to help those disadvantaged, why do they not want to accept more money to invest in their kids’ future. Someone needs to talk to them about “family values”

It's simple. Rural parents and older people have been convinced over time via propaganda that "the school system" is why younger people don't generally share their values and ideology. This can be used in all kinds of ways to create emotional responses later.

For example, many conservatives in the western states are convinced young arsonists are burning down forests and fields because they are homeless and feel entitled to housing. Of course, there is no proof of this, and they don't think it can be climate change because they don't think climate change is real.

As a result of all this, they are very willing to take their kids out of school and switch to some homeschooling program so they don't raise homeless arsonists.

I wish I was kidding.

Damn, this is why we can’t have satire anymore. Who would laugh about something so unbelievable?

If I don’t mind paying extra to help those disadvantaged, why do they not want to accept more money to invest in their kids’ future. Someone needs to talk to them about “family values”

Because they want to teach hate to keep the poor poor and the rich rich. A DoE will never allow that, the existence of a DoE is "woke".

Take $80 billion, divide by the number of households in US with children ~ 30 million. That’s about $2700. Anyone who’s a parent knows that doesn’t go far at all in terms of education expenses. Good luck privatizing education and funding it out pocket for $3k/yr. Complete idiots.

Generous of you to assume they'd redirect that money to anyone else but themselves and their cronies.

That's kinda the point. They actively want the poors to have to send their kids to the 'budget' schools. The ones that charge exactly $2700 / yr / student. Broken computers, empty libraries, overworked and severely underpaid teachers, no extra curriculars.

Meanwhile, the oligarchs rich people can send their kids to the schools that cost more, teaches their kids how to be shitty to the proletariat, and has a pipeline directly into colleges.

The whole point of this venture is to siphon even yet more money from the poor into the hands of the rich, meanwhile depriving those same poor of a worthwhile education and giving the rich an even greater advantage.

We spend like 15k/student right now.

I don't think they're capable of reforming education, but it's not the worst idea.

would make sense with the move to deregulate child labor laws in the usual states. get them littles back in the coal mines!

Aren’t schools funded by county property tax and not the DOE?

yeah I thought the dept of edumcation was administrative overhead

Depends on the state, but finding isn't really the issue here. It's a move to a voucher system.

The idea that they are pushing is to privatize the entire education system. Privatization has been a wet dream for Republicans for many years now, and not just in education. It would further corporatize the country and allow for more money that was once 'the people's' to be siphoned into private pockets.

So the state gives money to families with children. Those families send their kids to a private school and give that money (plus probably a lot more) to that private school. Public money flowing into private hands. Add to that deregulation of the industry - no standard tests or textbooks. Education will be chaos.

You can't indoctrinate kids nearly as easily in public schools, and there's no way to turn a profit on them. By contrast, a solid public education makes kids more likely to grow up and vote Democrat. The GOP especially today knows that it can't win legitimately; rage baiting and cheating are their only remaining strategies.

Why would ending a 40-yr-old Federal department end the 400-yr-old colony/state-based public school system?

Of all the departments that could be eliminated, it's only after Homeland Security in terms of one with a previous status quo in living memory.

https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/role.html

the Federal contribution to elementary and secondary education is about 8 percent

the Federal role in education as a kind of "emergency response system," a means of filling gaps in State and local support for education when critical national needs arise

comprehensive set of programs, including the Title I program of Federal aid to disadvantaged children to address the problems of poor urban and rural areas

While you may think 8% of school funding isn’t much to lose, look at what it would impact

At this point I really have to wonder if Republicans even want a federal level. I mean to me it looks like they are trying to disassemble the USA.

Hmm… rural southern voters wanting to disassemble the USA… I feel like I’ve heard this one before?

They want the largest amount of control at the highest level. If the federal level doesn't work, they'll dismantle it as far as possible and instead reign at the state level.

That's also why they are against "big government" - it's always the government above their highest one that's problematic. Never the one they are at.

They don't really want that federal control. They want to pretend they didn't lose the Civil War and have the federal government be responsible for international relations and military defense only.

This will allow them to pass whatever laws they want in their state, with effects I'd bet you can predict pretty easily, and depressingly.

Nah, they absolutely want federal control. Just federal control that's only MAGA nonsense. Look at what happened with abortion. First it was about "states rights" and now they want to make it illegal for residents of one state to do a legal thing in another state and make abortion illegal nation wide. It's never about "states rights". It's always about forcing their agenda on everyone no matter what.

They don't really want that federal control. They want to pretend they didn't lose the Civil War and have the federal government be responsible for international relations and military defense only.

That doesn't fit together with their legislature whenever they are in power. They seem to like federal control when they have it.

This will allow them to pass whatever laws they want in their state, with effects I'd bet you can predict pretty easily, and depressingly.

But why don't they stick to state governments? Why do they seem to use whatever power they have if they are in control of a city, a state or the federal government? Why do they not behave in real life the way you describe they do?

Most of the federal control they impose is just tied to the basic concepts of "white Christian theocracy" and not the actual governance.

As they fundamentally don't see non-white/Christian as equal or American, it kind of fills a grey space in their ideology as to federal control.

Most of the federal control they impose is just tied to the basic concepts of "white Christian theocracy" and not the actual governance.

But that's also governance. Things don't stop being governance because we disagree with what is being done. They use the power they have to push through their White Christian theocracy.

As they fundamentally don't see non-white/Christian as equal or American, it kind of fills a grey space in their ideology as to federal control.

And yet they use their federal control. They don't leave things as-is while they are in power.

I assure you that I think policies I don't like count as governance, which is why I've been involved in both lobbying and local politics my entire adult life.

Not sure what you're arguing against, since I'm talking about their general philosophy. That level of governance is assumed within this philosophy because they do not consider those different from them as truly American.

I'm arguing against your point "they don't want federal control", because it's wrong. They try to get as much federal control as possible. You yourself said they use the control they have to push White Christian theocracy.

I do not understand why you repeat that they don't want control. It's a tired talking point of conservatives and easily disproven by looking at their governance. If they don't want federal control, why do they always try to get federal control, and use it when they have it?

You could convince me by showing me that they don't want federal control from their actions. Show me a recent time they had federal control, and used that to reduce the amount of federal control on a topic they want controlled.

This is a manufactured argument about nothing.

No examples? Thought so. It's best not to repeat conservative talking points, especially when they are wrong.

Ahhh that's what it is. You smelled "conservative" and got blood-drunk and lost the plot.

Sorry to let you down. Prior to your feces-flinging, this was an intelligent conversation about philosophies.

Really makes me sad that you're the same person I thought was capable of actual thought

I'll ignore your insults and say: I'd still be happy to see any example that shows you're actually right. I don't think you can, because I've only ever seen conservatives bring forth this talking point in the last couple of years, and conservatives largely aren't basing their points of view in reality. You have a chance to show me that I'm wrong, but considering you've decided to "fling feces" I absolutely don't expect more from you.

But SCOTUS seems to be working out for them.

Maybe we should just get rid of the other two branches of government, and let them rule like kings.

Of course they do, they are advocating to strengthen it more then anybody. They just want to strengthen it in all the worst possible ways by making their fascism on the federal level.

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

So they say...

Conservatives have established a series of charter schools designed to eliminate liberal thinking and to embrace Conservative Religious values (hate, discrimination, and conformity).

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

I think politicians instead of professionals being in charge of intellectual and moral development of children would be the worse choice. Like letting the fox guarding the hen house.

You don't need anyone in charge of education if there's no education! Republicans seem to want to eliminate all education except for private "Christian" indoctrination centers.

These people are so fucking infuriating with their intentional ignorance...

WE VOTE FOR YOU TO CHOOSE THEM YOU NAZI FUCKS!

They know how representatives are supposed to work in government, they know that we (should be) electing people that we trust to make the right decisions with legislation and staffing. They'll defend Boofer McBooferton on the SCOTUS without blinking an eye. We didn't vote for him. We voted for the president that was handed a list by the federalist society chose him. Our vote for the (insert politician) was a vote for their choices...

I swear we need to force people to sit down and watch old PBS civics cartoons...

Imagine your kids’ education at the mercy of an authoritarian governor, acting to promote spite, hatred, scapegoats, outrage. Imagine a small group of racists, religious zealots, repressives steer your child away from actual education and towards whatever dreck they’re promoting.

I was in Junior High when Pink Floyd's The Wall came out.

Some dipshit scrawled 'WE DON'T NEED NO EDUCTION" on a desk in the library. Spelled like that.

I wrote under it "Yes, you do.",

It is a cool song that still brings chills today. Perhaps you should listen to the point that song is trying to get across before disparaging a tribute.

Then again, i imagine it’s like “Born in the USA” or “The Punisher” that somehow becomes an anthem for the exact opposite of intended meaning

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you need a comma before the beginning of the quote?

I wrote under it, "Yes, you do."

Sometimes putting a comma can give it an intonation. In this case given the comment about education being spelled wrong, having a comma after Yes gives a very sassy/mocking vibe.

He was actually asking if there should be a comma before the quote, not in it.

And I don’t think there should be.

Why?

Because he needs more EDUCTION

I suppose he does. Idk why my original comment got downvoted so much, I was just trying to be funny by pointing out a grammatical error in a message about correcting someone else's spelling and grammar.

This is so tragic it's not even funny any more.

Meanwhile, every single open dictatorship establishes an education system to garner public favor and attempt to control what the populate learns and thinks.

Given that we understand that conservative politicians know it takes a lack of education to vote conservative- do we assume this is actually why they’re gutting the DOE? Even though we know they don’t give a shit about the future for anyone but themselves?

Seriously… I honestly can’t see this paying off for another 10-15 years or so- and since they only care about themselves, they can’t be playing the long game here.

But then that leaves no good reason to create a country of dumbasses….

Lowering the quality of education is something that the right always does, everywhere in the world, when they come into power. It's a long term investment for them to stay or get back into power.

Education level is strongly correlated with political leaning so it's a smart move from them to attain their goals (which isn't making the country better).

They've been playing the long game for decades. Why would they stop right when it's starting to seriously pay off?

Again, because they don’t care about what’s good for anyone but themselves. Wrecking the DOE requires them to give a shit about who follows them in office once they retire.

They don’t care about that shit.

I think you misunderstand. They're playing the long game for themselves. I would never accuse them of giving a shit about anyone else.

They wanna make the Usa into North Korea where you can only learn how wonderful dear leader is

For reference, $80b/year is about an order of magnitude less than what the US spends on the military. Suddenly a lot of the ways America ... is... kind of makes sense.

More like several orders of magnitude.

Actually, it's pretty close to a single order of magnitude; $80b on education vs. $877b military. Not that it detracts from the point, though, nearly a trillion dollars is a metric shit-ton of money.

I think it leaves us with factory feudalism.

Republican don't want to re-organize how the federal government handles the responsibilities of the DOE—they want those responsibilities eliminated, and the more it harms schools, the better.

eh that's dumb. 99% of parents don't have time to raise children properly, let alone instruct them.

setting static budgeting caps is a really good idea though

Do you know what parents did before the DoE? Put their kids in the exact same school system they do now. The DoE started in 1980. The idea that Washington should suddenly have that much influence over a state/county-run public school system that existed since the 1600s was controversial.

Make the case for the DoE by all means, but reading this thread is blowing my mind. The DoE is barely older than I am and judging by tuition inflation and student debt it has left a few things to be desired in its short life.

The DoE was preceded by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The organizational structure has changed substantially over the centuries, sometimes being a standalone department and sometimes being an office in a larger department. But that is essentially window dressing.

Ultimately, the DoE goes back to 1867. It's been around for a while.

Ramaswamy isn't suggesting shuffling it into another department. He's suggesting getting rid of those functions entirely. Getting rid of the $80 million it spends on student loans, grants, anti discrimination enforcement and national education statistics, and "putting it in the hands of parents".

Republicans basically want to get rid of everything except for everything because they have no real policies at all

What irresponsible journalist is even presenting this as an option that should be speculated upon?

No they don't. If you want to control something your first step is not to break the mechanism of control. They want to say they want to.

Say you wanted to eliminate fossil fuels, if given federal power would you let 50 states or 5 different federal agencies just decide how to do it or would you use the existing control to make a unified standard across the country?

Honestly not against this? Canada delegates education to the provinces and does fine.

How many of those provinces are pushing creationism, pushing religion in general, forcing "don't say gay" laws, increasing police presence, and forcing the school to out any trans kids?

Well education is still all stated funded so it would look like it did back before it existed in 1979, and not much different than today, probably better. There's many national departments that are unneeded and could easily be eliminated.

Yeah, let's remove one of the foundational guardrails that is preventing states from teaching straight up religious fundamentalism in the classroom.

If you don't think that is the point behind this, then I have a bridge to sell you chief....

It worked for 200 years prior. And the state of our schools the past 20 years haven't been anything to brag about.

I'm not looking backwards, I'm looking forwards. The state of education has declined SPECIFICALLY because of this kind of Republican led obstructionism.

You think removing (the already seriously lacking) guardrails is going to make the problem go away? You're wrong, and that is simply one of the stupidest fucking takes I have heard from anybody that is capable of using a keyboard.

We are getting outclassed by countries who have been able to leave the kind of circle jerking that passes for politics in this country behind in the post WWII period of economic acceleration while we were naval gazing and Reaganizing.

No offense, but if you think removing ANY impediments that are preventing full chistisian nationalist minority rule in this country is a good idea then please do the rest of us a favor and don't vote...fuck.

Gotta remember: when regressives say that it worked well in the past, they mean it worked well for a very specific class of people. Mainly, upper and middle class white men. That is on purpose. They obviously know school was not good for the POC, minorities , the poor, and probably women 200 years ago.

Unless they are idiots.

Even so, its still very dumb when you are, or are moving towards, being a service economy. Gutting education is destinying your country to stop being a superpower in the future.

It worked for 200 years prior

No, it didn't. For most of that time most kids did not actually get an education.

The reason education became as big and important is because it indeed didn't work. And a well-educated populace is, like, one of the absolute most important things for a country to have, besides maybe good health. It's one of the primary metrics of a country's development index for a reason.

To be wanting to effectively abolish good education...

Don't worry, the shithole states are doing their best to bring us back to the days when a nine year old who couldn't afford school could get themselves a job at the local meat packing plant. Sadly, I think most of the textile mills have gone out of business, so those won't be an option any more.

yeah the shithole states are just importing illegals for those jobs now.

God forbid somebody try to make a better life for themselves and their family.

But just so we're clear, you are taking the pro child labor stance here and would rather have children doing that work? Good to know.

I'm anti child labor exploitation, and anti illegal immigrant labor exploitation, and anti federal bureaucratic BS. Education is funded by the states, and getting rid of the department won't change that.

Proof that it's real illegal labor and that it's the state's fault rather than the company exploiting people who are suffering and attempting to make a better life for themselves?

Also, do you think that giving the states full control won't mean certain ones have the freedom to enforce as much religious doctrine as they want? I personally have already experienced religious teachings in class. They are bringing back school prayer, posters with religious phrases, and clergy in schools instead of counselors. What assurances would I have for school to not turn into a church with a bit of math and reading on the side?

Agriculture workers in the south, the ICE chicken factory raids, the guys working roofing crews. and it's all their faults.

Your assurance is you can choose which school you want to send your kids too.

Funded by the states with minimum standards set at the federal level (though NCLB wasn't great). But if you honestly think the states currently rolling back child labor laws wouldn't have a field day if DOE were eliminated, I'm not sure there's a real discussion to be had.

That's the great thing about America. If you don't like your state, move. Covid kick-started a huge migration wave in this country, but the reasons people are moving are not just covid related. NCLB should have been the killing blow for DOE, what a sad and terrible policy.

No privilege in that comment, no sir.

I guess as long as it's only the children of true believers and poor folks it's all fine and dandy.

We are all very privileged to live in America, I agree with that!

So because we did it before, it must be perfect?

nope. Changing and doing something different doesn't mean it's better than what came before. It's perfectly fine to revert to a previous version.

Did it? Because literacy rates are bad now but even worse then. Let alone literally every other subject.

Depends on the state you live in. If you live in a blue state, you might see some improvement. If you're in a red state, you can expect even worse educational outcomes than they are already seeing. Remember, the Texas GOP platform in 2012 included this gem.

We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

They oppose teaching critical thinking skills or anything that might challenge a students beliefs. Do you really want people like them deciding what will be taught in schools and how?

They already do. All text books sold to schools In the US have to be approved by some review board in Texas currently. I don't think it's a department of education thing, but it would certainly reduce thier power.

That's because Texas buys loads of school books and the publishing companies don't want to make multiple editions. Getting rid of a federal agency won't do anything to change that

Yep. The federal agency hasn't fixed it either and gave us No Child Left Behind. It's like they are trying to make education fail in this country.

The federal agency is at least making sure Texas doesn't try teaching the Bible as history.

That's the first amendment actually. A dedicated private religious school can and do teach the bible, or koran, or torah.