Bye Bye Department of Education – for now (Part 2)

Bye bye Department of Education – for now

The President has been given permission by the Supreme Court to downsize the Department of Education. I am confused. Rubio is downsizing the State Department but I don’t recall his asking the Supreme Court for permission to do so. Regardless, neither the reduction in force at State or at Education can be permanent. The departments were created by an act of congress and only congress can eliminate them. The next democrat administration will restore both.

Linda McMahon the Secretary of Education said “Today, the Supreme Court (by a 6-3 vote) again confirmed the obvious: the President of the United States, as the head of the Executive Branch, has the ultimate authority to make decisions about staffing levels, administrative organization, and day-to-day operations of federal agencies,”

The president of the Heritage Foundation among many others applauded the downsizing say that the department was an “abject failure” and failed in its mission to improve American education. I disagree. The department has been a rip roaring success and has not been an “abject failure.” Only the naïve would assume that the purpose of the department has been to improve American education. Elizabeth Warraen tweeted “Trump’s Supreme Court just greenlit his plans to gut the Department of Education. Every kid in America deserves access to a good public education.” Somehow she wants us to think that there is a relationship between funding the Department of Education and receiving a good public education. She knows better and so should most Americans. The purpose of the department of education was to funnel money into the education-industrial complex, namely the teachers’ unions. No wonder they are whining. While the number of students in public education is falling, the number of administrative staff has shot through the roof.

The teachers’ unions do not care about educating our children. Every sign of achievement has fallen since the establishment of the department. I have noted before that at the teachers’ unions conventions are hardly any sessions on teaching. Rather critical race theory, LGBTQ issues and equity take center stage perhaps not surprisingly since the head of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten – a woman – is married to a woman. This is a statement from Biden’s Department of Education which was all in for imposing trans policies on every school receiving federal funding. “Every student deserves to learn in a safe and supportive setting, free from discrimination. As the Department of Education has reaffirmed, discrimination based on sex—including sexual orientation and gender identity—isn’t just wrong, it’s prohibited in America’s schools. Yet many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) students experience bullying, harassment, and other discrimination because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.” Obviously, the Trump administration vanquished all such pronouncements.

Downsizing the department does not mean that the funding that was appropriated by the congress will vanish into the ether. Trump could impound it or he could allocate it to the states in block grants. But remember that the department was low hanging fruit. It has a relatively small budget and employs only 4,400 people Consider that State just laid off 1,350 workers with a goal of 3,000. This is out of a workforce of over 80,000.

Some are saying that when the Department of Education basically disappears under Trump that it will stay gone because nobody will miss it. Au contraire, those on the gravy train will miss it. The teachers’ unions are run by democrat operatives and fund democrats. Does it surprise anyone that the bulk of the spending by those unions goes for political activities and 94 percent of that goes to democrats? The unions spend more for politics than they do for representing members. Mark my word, the democrats will resurrect the department at the first opportunity.

If the criteria for doing away with a department is that it has failed its stated mission, then more cabinet agencies need to go bye bye. Energy, Small Business Administration, Labor, Interior, Commerce, Housing and Urban Development and Agriculture come to mind. I think that Defense, Homeland Security, Treasury and Health and Human Services may be worthwhile but all are grossly overstaffed and overfunded. Just keep in mind that democrats disagree because in their eyes, every penny of federal money is vital and every federal employee is essential (as long as they keep voting democrat).

Finally, why is the department’s headquarters’ building named after Lyndon Johnson? Shouldn’t it be named after Jimmy Carter instead?