Looking at that last graph, it doesn't really demonstrate that increased spending or the creation of DOE made education worse, but it makes abundantly clear that it sure didn't make it any better.
I exited the public education system in 1972 upon high school graduation. While I have criticisms about some aspects of the schooling I received (all with regards to social studies and history), on the whole I can't complain, especially when compared to recent products of the system, including my son.
And don't even get me started on the "programs" to help students struggling for various reasons.
Yes, there's a little post hoc ergo propter hoc here, but as you say -- at the very least it shows the DoE was a miserable failure when it comes to improving education.
For me, it was a surprise to be reminded that the DOE was not created until 1979. For a lot of people alive today, that's been their whole life. For people of my generation, it was created after I had already exited the system. So doing away with it doesn't seem like such a big deal.
How perfectly predictable for the nanny state. Establish a "think tank" of federal employees in Washington DC who can contemplate new ideas to enrich the brains of the nation's children, teach tolerance and inclusivity, promote diversity of thought, question American values and give direction to the operating education departments of 50 states.
No way that could turn into a bloated mess, full of asininity, questionable social mores and completely ineffective, is there?
The graph from Cato looks the same for all Western nations.
Pouring more money into a system as the only solution, is very much like filling the car (not just the tank, the car) with diesel, thinking it will go further and faster.
The sad truth is, a lot of teachers don't want to actually teach: they want to follow a check-list of fixed items, tick off the answers on multiple-choice sheets, and go home at the end of the day.
And a lot of us wants to do everything at school, but teach. Meetings about anything you can dream up. Projects. Conferences. "New" pedagogy (in reality some failed hokum bogus interwar-idea that's been semantically deep-fried re-fried to look appetising). New tech - that's the Holy Grail and a silver bullet all in one go. New tech. Flannellographs. OH-machines. Slide shots. Film. Video. Computers. AI. Whatever the tech is, long as it's new, it's going to fix all the problems in education.
How about actually teaching your classes the actual Gods' burned damn subject! And nothing else!
By the hairy hoary balls of Fenris, does the state of education rile me so much I start grinding my teeth!
The quotes about student proficiency in Chicago and Baltimore have me reeling. NEW MEXICO is 50th in education. Gotta give us credit. It's like the limbo. How LOW can you go? And as Cindi says, the Dem legislature has been passing bills that are outrageous. I've been writing and phoning legislators. At least one bill has been killed. The rest are likely to pass. Sierra clubbed to death on the environment with false "environmental solutions," including electric vehicles.
The OECD averages for Mathematics, Science and Reading have been in steady decline since internet became commonplace (scroll down on the page, you'll see a graph starting at 2003 which is when the trend became more than a blip). The Covid-drop between 2018 and 2022 (PISA 2021 was postponed due to Covid lockdowns) is simply the accelerated continuation of a two decades long trend, so neither Covid nor lockdowns can be blamed.
There's lot of data to look at, of course, but the down-ward trend all over the West started during the 1990s. The exceptions are few, and in Europe, former Easter Bloc satellites are not affected by the decline.
To me, summing up all the other PISA reports I've read over the years, the underlying problem for us can be summed up in two points:
Lack of order in school/class
Consistently diminished real workload
Which, unsurprisingly perhaps, are the two points almost all teachers and school-politicians oppose, since both require actually doing tangible measurable things, from their side.
I think cultural attitudes have a lot to do with it also. In US schools, classically the Asian students always did the best because it was a cultural imperative for them. Most American kids, on the other hand, prioritized sports and popularity over academics. Outliers like me were called nerds. (For context, I graduated from high school in 1972.)
I've always thought that improving cultural support for school would be at least one aspect of improving education. And that's something that would take generations, probably.
I could write a thesis-length piece on the state of education here. I'm sure you can do likewise.
But: yes, it's a cultural issue. Education is a formality now, where you trade time and following a checklist to be rewarded with a grade and a degree.
"autonomous" learning to learn is the real world requirement for all schools. The 3 Rs have always been the framework in which that requirement is applied. Pedo jones won't be available to spoon-feed meaningless standardized test answers when a graduate needs an accurate answer to questions about building a shed, buying stocks or insurance, or evaluating anything the government is proposing to rip you off more for -- like light rail and gun control. Children should know how to learn about any subject, to understand the things that hold them back from good answers, and know how to fill those gaps they discover (sometimes by knowing how to hire help). If they can't do that then our populace is stupid and vulnerable. It's just that simple: Teach to the world.
It is difficult for me to be objective because my default assumption is that everything in DC is just a massive racket (because that is true). Nonetheless, the case for D o Ed failure is pretty cut and dried. There is no argument to be made for keeping it. They utterly failed. And that is not even bringing up the issue of whether such an agency is even constitutional (hint: it isn't).
The Dem lawfare strategy will certainly be attempted. They are trying to tie up DoJ time and resources, because that is all they can do with plummeting poll numbers. The Dems are as toxic as ever, and more importantly, everyone is noticing.
My favorite play so far, when a judge ordered the ten thousand credit card accounts discovered by DOGE to remain, the admin responded by setting the card limits to one dollar. No legal battle, no time wasted. This is exactly the sort of thing I like to see, until we get a blanket ruling from SCOTUS to BTFO these commie losers in judicial attire.
A large part of the problem that is so ingrained into politicians and easily sold to voters is that the only solution is “we need more funds.” No, actually, you don’t. You need to stop pissing it away. In other words, audited and held accountable. But here goes the gas lighting….. it’s okay, let’s have Randi Weingarten throw another Kindergarten level temper tantrum. She seems so professional…
This digusting person should have been gone long ago....let’s have Randi Weingarten throw another Kindergarten level temper tantrum. She seems so professional…
Kind of an aside, and an FYI/suggested reading: I'm reading some of The Power Broker this week, the huge book about New York and Robert Moses, 1920-1970. He had quite a few intra-government battles directly applicable to Trump and DOGE. How do you win these battles against bureaucracy and entrenched interests? Moses usually won them.
Or computer scientists who can't apply a connectivity matrix and scoff at road atlas mileage table illustrations because "they have a phone, boomer." It is an epidemic of credentialed sanctimonious incompetence.
Not at all surprised. I worked with recent college graduates, in biology, they couldn't figure out how to tell the day of the month. They didn't know how to use an auto-pipette. They'd contaminate it everytime. This was at a drink producer.
'We don't need no education, We don't need no thought control, No dark sarcasm in the classroom , Teacher, leave them kids alone !!.. All in all , you're just another brick in the wall.'
Pink Floyd 1979
Pick your battles to win the war and I don't think this was a worthy battle. I would've had DJT declare that after 'The pledge of Allegiance' the kids would have to watch 10 minutes of different U.S. heroes from MLK, JFK (un-redacted), Lincoln, Reagan, Franklin, and JDs (last Tues.) in their famous speeches of why the U.S.A. is the best and how everyone has got a shot at success here. 'One nation under .....' was it Gandhi or John Lennon, I forget?
No pledge. The government is not our country. It is not our God. It is not our savior. Furthermore, claims that central government tyrants are heroes to be worshipped as part of statolatry indoctrination is EXACTLY the social normalization of violent crime syndicates which opposes the development of an educated and independently viable populace.
No matter who or what, the school day should start standing, hand over heart saying the pledge of allegiance followed by some kind of prayer. We need to get civilized again and thankful.
"Just a bit off the top for administration"... and debt service, including interest, an NGO here, a non-profit there.... but we got back $.19 of that $1.00 we sent to DC. Ain't government great!?
As a 1-party Marxist state, NM will continue to abuse the citizenry, including children / education.
In the electoral scheme of things NM is pretty unimportant but I sure wish the admin would start paying attn to the defiance: the “legislature” is planning to pass laws to keep trannies in women’s sports not to mention DEI in all aspects, will not allow state/county/city law enforcement agencies to assist ICE in ANY way, to actually pay violent juvenile criminals reparations while tabling legislation that would have updated consequences for juvenile serious crimes, 2A unconstitutional abuses, etc.
That can't happen no matter who runs it. It's not my job to figure it out but it's our job as US citizens to demand certain laws of the land be followed. No, I don't have the answer but I am sure someone in the Trump administration does. Get busy.
Of course, they are defiant lunatic brats, that's what corporal punishment is for. It beats the outcome they are pressing for, where the men in those girls' lives address the issue on a human scale, rather than one defined by predatory crime syndicates. The exclusion of and discrimination against mentally ill sexual predators is necessary for a viable human civilization.
It will eventually go to the courts and the Democrats will have to stand up and say that it's fair for boys to run against girls and they'll continue losing voters to this issue.
This track meet will be replicated almost every week in the PNW.
I can hardly believe they’re so stupid but basically the are “for”: trannies ruining women’s sports & spaces, open borders, legal rights & free everything for illegal aliens entitled to nothing at the expense of our taxes to pay for it all, impoverishing citizens via the “green new deal”, forcing EV, “vaccine” & other “mandates”, on & on 🤬
Back when I watched West Wing I loved this scene where the Republicans threatened to start a bunch of public debates where the Democrats would be on the wrong side. (English as the official language was an example.)
I recommend that we at the very least spin off the NNSA and its subdivisions of the DoE, and not just for selfish reasons. Hell, if that's what it takes to get rid of the vast majority of all of those, I'll go find another job. But I do think we should at least maintain safe stewardship of the nuclear arsenal.
Looking at that last graph, it doesn't really demonstrate that increased spending or the creation of DOE made education worse, but it makes abundantly clear that it sure didn't make it any better.
I exited the public education system in 1972 upon high school graduation. While I have criticisms about some aspects of the schooling I received (all with regards to social studies and history), on the whole I can't complain, especially when compared to recent products of the system, including my son.
And don't even get me started on the "programs" to help students struggling for various reasons.
Yes, there's a little post hoc ergo propter hoc here, but as you say -- at the very least it shows the DoE was a miserable failure when it comes to improving education.
For me, it was a surprise to be reminded that the DOE was not created until 1979. For a lot of people alive today, that's been their whole life. For people of my generation, it was created after I had already exited the system. So doing away with it doesn't seem like such a big deal.
How perfectly predictable for the nanny state. Establish a "think tank" of federal employees in Washington DC who can contemplate new ideas to enrich the brains of the nation's children, teach tolerance and inclusivity, promote diversity of thought, question American values and give direction to the operating education departments of 50 states.
No way that could turn into a bloated mess, full of asininity, questionable social mores and completely ineffective, is there?
"This is NOT sustainable"
Nor is the DoD or DoT or anything else in socialism 943.0.
The graph from Cato looks the same for all Western nations.
Pouring more money into a system as the only solution, is very much like filling the car (not just the tank, the car) with diesel, thinking it will go further and faster.
The sad truth is, a lot of teachers don't want to actually teach: they want to follow a check-list of fixed items, tick off the answers on multiple-choice sheets, and go home at the end of the day.
And a lot of us wants to do everything at school, but teach. Meetings about anything you can dream up. Projects. Conferences. "New" pedagogy (in reality some failed hokum bogus interwar-idea that's been semantically deep-fried re-fried to look appetising). New tech - that's the Holy Grail and a silver bullet all in one go. New tech. Flannellographs. OH-machines. Slide shots. Film. Video. Computers. AI. Whatever the tech is, long as it's new, it's going to fix all the problems in education.
How about actually teaching your classes the actual Gods' burned damn subject! And nothing else!
By the hairy hoary balls of Fenris, does the state of education rile me so much I start grinding my teeth!
Excellent observations, especially the automotive analogy.
Always taking the easy way. Checkboxes and technology are easy. Throwing money at a problem is easy.
Anything that involves energy and creativity? Forget about it.
The quotes about student proficiency in Chicago and Baltimore have me reeling. NEW MEXICO is 50th in education. Gotta give us credit. It's like the limbo. How LOW can you go? And as Cindi says, the Dem legislature has been passing bills that are outrageous. I've been writing and phoning legislators. At least one bill has been killed. The rest are likely to pass. Sierra clubbed to death on the environment with false "environmental solutions," including electric vehicles.
May I pour some salt on that?
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/pisa-2022-results-volume-i_53f23881-en.html
The OECD averages for Mathematics, Science and Reading have been in steady decline since internet became commonplace (scroll down on the page, you'll see a graph starting at 2003 which is when the trend became more than a blip). The Covid-drop between 2018 and 2022 (PISA 2021 was postponed due to Covid lockdowns) is simply the accelerated continuation of a two decades long trend, so neither Covid nor lockdowns can be blamed.
There's lot of data to look at, of course, but the down-ward trend all over the West started during the 1990s. The exceptions are few, and in Europe, former Easter Bloc satellites are not affected by the decline.
To me, summing up all the other PISA reports I've read over the years, the underlying problem for us can be summed up in two points:
Lack of order in school/class
Consistently diminished real workload
Which, unsurprisingly perhaps, are the two points almost all teachers and school-politicians oppose, since both require actually doing tangible measurable things, from their side.
I agree with your two points.
I think cultural attitudes have a lot to do with it also. In US schools, classically the Asian students always did the best because it was a cultural imperative for them. Most American kids, on the other hand, prioritized sports and popularity over academics. Outliers like me were called nerds. (For context, I graduated from high school in 1972.)
I've always thought that improving cultural support for school would be at least one aspect of improving education. And that's something that would take generations, probably.
I could write a thesis-length piece on the state of education here. I'm sure you can do likewise.
But: yes, it's a cultural issue. Education is a formality now, where you trade time and following a checklist to be rewarded with a grade and a degree.
And that's bad. Real bad.
"autonomous" learning to learn is the real world requirement for all schools. The 3 Rs have always been the framework in which that requirement is applied. Pedo jones won't be available to spoon-feed meaningless standardized test answers when a graduate needs an accurate answer to questions about building a shed, buying stocks or insurance, or evaluating anything the government is proposing to rip you off more for -- like light rail and gun control. Children should know how to learn about any subject, to understand the things that hold them back from good answers, and know how to fill those gaps they discover (sometimes by knowing how to hire help). If they can't do that then our populace is stupid and vulnerable. It's just that simple: Teach to the world.
he did the right thing. make education great again. no capitals needed to make this statement.
The visuals today with children signing small versions of the EO was brilliant. Let’s give the states a better chance since DC mucks it up so badly.
It is difficult for me to be objective because my default assumption is that everything in DC is just a massive racket (because that is true). Nonetheless, the case for D o Ed failure is pretty cut and dried. There is no argument to be made for keeping it. They utterly failed. And that is not even bringing up the issue of whether such an agency is even constitutional (hint: it isn't).
The Dem lawfare strategy will certainly be attempted. They are trying to tie up DoJ time and resources, because that is all they can do with plummeting poll numbers. The Dems are as toxic as ever, and more importantly, everyone is noticing.
My favorite play so far, when a judge ordered the ten thousand credit card accounts discovered by DOGE to remain, the admin responded by setting the card limits to one dollar. No legal battle, no time wasted. This is exactly the sort of thing I like to see, until we get a blanket ruling from SCOTUS to BTFO these commie losers in judicial attire.
That more or less seems to be the plan here.....we can't eliminate it but we can make it as tiny as possible.
A large part of the problem that is so ingrained into politicians and easily sold to voters is that the only solution is “we need more funds.” No, actually, you don’t. You need to stop pissing it away. In other words, audited and held accountable. But here goes the gas lighting….. it’s okay, let’s have Randi Weingarten throw another Kindergarten level temper tantrum. She seems so professional…
This digusting person should have been gone long ago....let’s have Randi Weingarten throw another Kindergarten level temper tantrum. She seems so professional…
Kind of an aside, and an FYI/suggested reading: I'm reading some of The Power Broker this week, the huge book about New York and Robert Moses, 1920-1970. He had quite a few intra-government battles directly applicable to Trump and DOGE. How do you win these battles against bureaucracy and entrenched interests? Moses usually won them.
At work, I can see the failure of education when a younger worker could not spell Jennifer or understand percentages.
Don't even get me started on cashiers not being able to make change, much less count it back correctly.
They taught us how to do it in third grade (1963 for me).
Or computer scientists who can't apply a connectivity matrix and scoff at road atlas mileage table illustrations because "they have a phone, boomer." It is an epidemic of credentialed sanctimonious incompetence.
"they have a phone, boomer."
Those are the people who are helpless when visiting my area, where there is no cell service.
Do you charge admission to the migratory transhuman observation decks?
gobble gobble
My son recently employed, for a very short time, a young woman whose qualifications included a college degree in 'Office Administration'.
She was, it turned out, functionally illiterate, and innumerate.
And did not understand, at all, why those skills were of some importance for someone hired to to type up six and seven figure RFQ's and bids.
Not at all surprised. I worked with recent college graduates, in biology, they couldn't figure out how to tell the day of the month. They didn't know how to use an auto-pipette. They'd contaminate it everytime. This was at a drink producer.
'We don't need no education, We don't need no thought control, No dark sarcasm in the classroom , Teacher, leave them kids alone !!.. All in all , you're just another brick in the wall.'
Pink Floyd 1979
Pick your battles to win the war and I don't think this was a worthy battle. I would've had DJT declare that after 'The pledge of Allegiance' the kids would have to watch 10 minutes of different U.S. heroes from MLK, JFK (un-redacted), Lincoln, Reagan, Franklin, and JDs (last Tues.) in their famous speeches of why the U.S.A. is the best and how everyone has got a shot at success here. 'One nation under .....' was it Gandhi or John Lennon, I forget?
No pledge. The government is not our country. It is not our God. It is not our savior. Furthermore, claims that central government tyrants are heroes to be worshipped as part of statolatry indoctrination is EXACTLY the social normalization of violent crime syndicates which opposes the development of an educated and independently viable populace.
No matter who or what, the school day should start standing, hand over heart saying the pledge of allegiance followed by some kind of prayer. We need to get civilized again and thankful.
"Just a bit off the top for administration"... and debt service, including interest, an NGO here, a non-profit there.... but we got back $.19 of that $1.00 we sent to DC. Ain't government great!?
And that $.19 came with $.25 cents worth of hoops to jump through.
Awesome! Pray they don't make a fuss that can't be done and dusted stat!
As a 1-party Marxist state, NM will continue to abuse the citizenry, including children / education.
In the electoral scheme of things NM is pretty unimportant but I sure wish the admin would start paying attn to the defiance: the “legislature” is planning to pass laws to keep trannies in women’s sports not to mention DEI in all aspects, will not allow state/county/city law enforcement agencies to assist ICE in ANY way, to actually pay violent juvenile criminals reparations while tabling legislation that would have updated consequences for juvenile serious crimes, 2A unconstitutional abuses, etc.
That can't happen no matter who runs it. It's not my job to figure it out but it's our job as US citizens to demand certain laws of the land be followed. No, I don't have the answer but I am sure someone in the Trump administration does. Get busy.
If true, revert it to a territory.
SaHib - It wouldn't take much to do that.
I'm sure you've seen the video going around of the Oregon track meet.......
They are defiant on the issue.
https://x.com/Nicole4Oregon/status/1902800459112611895
Of course, they are defiant lunatic brats, that's what corporal punishment is for. It beats the outcome they are pressing for, where the men in those girls' lives address the issue on a human scale, rather than one defined by predatory crime syndicates. The exclusion of and discrimination against mentally ill sexual predators is necessary for a viable human civilization.
Link wouldn't work. Don't know if it's my phone or the link.
"gender expansive"? My pronouns are he/she/it/they. LOL!
Hadn’t heard but Maine & surely other states are doing or plan to do same. What do you think will happen?
It will eventually go to the courts and the Democrats will have to stand up and say that it's fair for boys to run against girls and they'll continue losing voters to this issue.
This track meet will be replicated almost every week in the PNW.
Where is Gloria Steinem and all those women's rights people. This trannie thing in sports is just unacceptable.
I'm waiting for some 6'9" burly cut person to identify as a woman and break all the WNBA records in scoring and rebounds.
WNBA is probably a REALLY sacred cow - look what they’ve gotten away w/ for that poor white gal from Iowa that put the crappy WNBA on the map
I can hardly believe they’re so stupid but basically the are “for”: trannies ruining women’s sports & spaces, open borders, legal rights & free everything for illegal aliens entitled to nothing at the expense of our taxes to pay for it all, impoverishing citizens via the “green new deal”, forcing EV, “vaccine” & other “mandates”, on & on 🤬
Back when I watched West Wing I loved this scene where the Republicans threatened to start a bunch of public debates where the Democrats would be on the wrong side. (English as the official language was an example.)
Now, Democrats are doing it to themselves.
http://www.westwingtranscripts.com/search.php?flag=getTranscript&id=20&keyword=wrong%20side
Hopefully this works, you should be able to click right to the scene.
👍🏻 thx SC! Never watched that show so I’ll check it out
Now do Department of the Interior, Commerce, Energy, HHS, DHS, HUD, Department of Labor................🔥
I recommend that we at the very least spin off the NNSA and its subdivisions of the DoE, and not just for selfish reasons. Hell, if that's what it takes to get rid of the vast majority of all of those, I'll go find another job. But I do think we should at least maintain safe stewardship of the nuclear arsenal.
Yeah; that BLM! (Bureau of Land Management)
The Ron Paul Superfecta!