Psyched! He's closing the Department of Education in Washignton DC

[Anonymous]

Do people not realize that an educated poor populace is GOOD for the country. We're all better if all of us are well educated.
Now, there will be segregation and money drained from public schools. These parents can't afford to send their students elsewhere. What do these people THINK is going to happen?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every single quarter, school districts must file two voluminous tomes of reports with the Department of Education and also with the Department of Commerce.

How do you think those reports get filed? You think somebody chants a spell and waves a magic wand?

It takes 800 labor hours to complete each of those reports. For the Department of Commerce, stupid stuff like how many kilowatt hours of electricity were consumed and how many gallons of water and what did they purchase and what did the sell/auction/destroy/dispose of and what assets were depreciated and how many hours did teachers, staff, administrators and other employees work and how many injuries and reported illnesses and time off and badabeebadaboo.

And that's just for the Department of Commerce quarterly report.

Do you have any idea what school districts spend on compliance?

Compliance is not optional. It's a requirement. Failure to comply invites sanctions for the school district, the State or both and the Departments of Education and Commerce have wide-ranging powers to levy sanctions.

Don't file your quarterly report with the Department of Ed? Better hope there was an earthquake, tornado or hurricane because you're gonna be fined.

The discipline section alone is a nightmare. It's no wonder schools don't want to discipline kids because you gotta spend 40 labor hours gathering the data to report a single incident.

In fact, if you bothered to read any of the reports issued by Senate and House Committees on education you'd know the States spend in excess of 50 Million labor hours to process the paperwork mandated by the federal government.

Y'all whine about teachers salaries, well end the federal mandates and there'll be tons o' money to give teachers a pay raise. In fact, you could probably increase their salaries 50% because that's how much money school districts spend to be compliant with federal mandates.

What the Department of Education does is raise the cost of education without raising student achievement.

Milton Friedman was right. Education need to be publicly funded because it's in the country's best interest but families must have choices.

To that end Arizona does it right. 90% of the money spent on your child at a public school can be used by the family to pay for a private school.

Arizona also added on-line learning to reduce costs to tax-payers.

How? These so-called autistic students are disruptive and distracting and ruin learning in the classroom because of their frequent outbursts and it costs money because school districts have to hire people to help teachers manage these autistic kids in the classroom and the autistic kids aren't learning anything.

By letting those students stay home with their care-giver who knows them way better than school staff and can supervise them properly saves school districts money and the care-giver knows when their child is "in a learning mood" and can get them online to complete tasks and assignments.

It's a win-win for everyone.

Are you kidding me? Former Arizonan with a front row seat to the dismantling of the public education system and the resulting race to the bottom. Plummeting performance, corrupt leadership of privately run charter schools making 7 figures and forcing parents to “fundraise” to tip their underpaid teachers, spending a part time job’s worth of hours to get up to speed on how to play the game and get the best education for your kid, no more neighborhood school friends because everyone drives across the city for the best school they could lottery in to…it is a depressing mess.

I was there for that too! So much corruption.

In TX we just found out that a franchised charter school can send millions of their funds to failing out of state charters. It's a literal grift

Yep. And vouchers are going to be used to support privates and Catholic schools and evangelical fundamentalist schools.

Anyone who can't already afford to attend, or doesn't want to, will be screwed. Including all the special Ed students who aren't going to be accepted at those schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do people not realize that an educated poor populace is GOOD for the country. We're all better if all of us are well educated.
Now, there will be segregation and money drained from public schools. These parents can't afford to send their students elsewhere. What do these people THINK is going to happen?

GOOD for the country.
BAD for Republicans.

[Anonymous]

Regardless of what the President says he will not be able to eliminate the Department of Education as a cabinet level agency for three primary reasons.

1. Most importantly, the President does not have the votes in Congress. Last year, during the debate on the Parents Bill of Rights Act, Representative Massie offered an amendment to eliminate the Department that failed. 60 Republicans voted against it.

This is an evergreen issue conservatives have brought up since Reagan and it has failed repeatedly. The President just does not have the votes in the House or Senate, just like he didn’t during his previous term when he said he would do the same thing.

2. He needs to hire both a Secretary of Education and appoint Schedule C staff that share his vision. No two term Republican has ever achieved this feat. His previous Secretary did not have the technical ability or aptitude to structure such an initiative. During his last term the President appointed several political staff who did not share this vision and some actively worked against it. His daughter was influential in the education and workforce space. She recommended Democrats to key positions (e.g., number 2 position in the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education) and other Republicans who did not necessarily agree with the Administration. In fact, Ivanka Trump used her influence to maintain or expand the role of government in certain domains administered by the Department.

While it’s true the President’s Republican children (e.g., Don Jr.) are now more involved than in the past, it would still be a challenge to staff all the Department’s politicals with 100% Trump acolytes.

3. In terms of conservative education prioritization, cultural or school choice issues are more popular than fighting to restructure a federal cabinet agency. Looking at models such as the one in Florida, it’s far more likely that Trump Education appointees would focus on cultural or school choice issues vs. an agency restructure. Furthermore, given the short timeframe, the President can’t do both. He would need a functioning Department of Education to implement his cultural and school choice education priorities.

Finally, while it’s possible the new Administration could achieve 1 or 2 of these 3 elements, they would need all 3 to work together in perfect harmony for there to be any chance of an agency restructure to happen successfully. While there are many education issues to be considered about, the elimination of the Department of Education as a federal cabinet agency is not one of them. Trump can’t get it done no matter what he says. The mathematical probability that he can achieve this objective is as close to zero as one can get in a field that isn’t an exact science. Let’s focus on engaging on education issues that have a chance to become reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Regardless of what the President says he will not be able to eliminate the Department of Education as a cabinet level agency for three primary reasons.

1. Most importantly, the President does not have the votes in Congress. Last year, during the debate on the Parents Bill of Rights Act, Representative Massie offered an amendment to eliminate the Department that failed. 60 Republicans voted against it.

This is an evergreen issue conservatives have brought up since Reagan and it has failed repeatedly. The President just does not have the votes in the House or Senate, just like he didn’t during his previous term when he said he would do the same thing.

2. He needs to hire both a Secretary of Education and appoint Schedule C staff that share his vision. No two term Republican has ever achieved this feat. His previous Secretary did not have the technical ability or aptitude to structure such an initiative. During his last term the President appointed several political staff who did not share this vision and some actively worked against it. His daughter was influential in the education and workforce space. She recommended Democrats to key positions (e.g., number 2 position in the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education) and other Republicans who did not necessarily agree with the Administration. In fact, Ivanka Trump used her influence to maintain or expand the role of government in certain domains administered by the Department.

While it’s true the President’s Republican children (e.g., Don Jr.) are now more involved than in the past, it would still be a challenge to staff all the Department’s politicals with 100% Trump acolytes.

3. In terms of conservative education prioritization, cultural or school choice issues are more popular than fighting to restructure a federal cabinet agency. Looking at models such as the one in Florida, it’s far more likely that Trump Education appointees would focus on cultural or school choice issues vs. an agency restructure. Furthermore, given the short timeframe, the President can’t do both. He would need a functioning Department of Education to implement his cultural and school choice education priorities.

Finally, while it’s possible the new Administration could achieve 1 or 2 of these 3 elements, they would need all 3 to work together in perfect harmony for there to be any chance of an agency restructure to happen successfully. While there are many education issues to be considered about, the elimination of the Department of Education as a federal cabinet agency is not one of them. Trump can’t get it done no matter what he says. The mathematical probability that he can achieve this objective is as close to zero as one can get in a field that isn’t an exact science. Let’s focus on engaging on education issues that have a chance to become reality.

+1 this

Just throws sh&t at the wall to see what sticks. The rest is just noise to distract his opponents.

People on the left need to focus on the sh$t that is likely to stick. Not this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do people not realize that an educated poor populace is GOOD for the country. We're all better if all of us are well educated.
Now, there will be segregation and money drained from public schools. These parents can't afford to send their students elsewhere. What do these people THINK is going to happen?

Agree. But the poor populace is currently not educated. Baltimore schools have ZERO students that are grade level proficient in math. National averages for grade level proficiency is pretty abysmal as well, with the poorest areas failing in every metric. It can’t get any worse.

[Anonymous]

An authoritarian with no guardrails can do whatever they want. Senate overrides? Ya, right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So no more special education, no more FAFSA, no more Pell Grants.

I guess the goal is to keep everyone stupid and poor.

Don't worry, the rich kids can still go to college.

That is the point.

I pre-paid both kids’ educations in a one-income family (my spouse stayed at home until the kids were in late high school) by living frugally and putting money into a 529 fund. We kept driving old cars that were paid off, and only did a couple vacations during the kids’ entire upbringing. Then they both got a lot of scholarships, so most of the 529 money is going to carry forward for grandchildren. I also don’t spend money on tobacco, cable TV or other streaming services, alcohol, or tattoos and piercings. For entertainment the kids had library cards instead of expensive gaming consoles — which probably explains the large number of scholarships.

Life is mostly about choices like that, but it’s also important to keep in mind that a college degree is not the only path to financial success. Hard work and emotional intelligence are the main drivers. My kids’ friends who got CDL licenses or who work on HVAC systems are making fantastic money right now.

I volunteer at school recruitment tables for one of our high school sports teams, and I am often approached by parents who are literally covered from head to toe in tattoos, who ask it there is funding available to help pay for equipment. I tell them that they already blew the thousands of dollars on tattoos that could have been used for their kids’ proper upbringing, so our sports team may not be the right fit for them; it’s unwise to throw good money after bad.

That’s a good, national public policy too. As the saying goes, “stupid should hurt”.

Then you must have a pretty good one income. The cost for me to prepay my kids’ education for public universities is more than $2000 a month. We live modestly and still can’t swing that. Imagine most people can’t either. Maybe don’t be so judgmental. You sound privileged.

You sound like you don’t know how to invest your money. I invested less than that per month in an aggressive Fidelity 529 as soon as the first one was born. Then ran the Fidelity 529 visa card at a zero balance, but put every living expense on it to get the % back into the college fund, which also added a bit more each year.

Your statement is a good example of how misguided the collectivists’ “privilege” mythology is. Sure, wealth is heritable, but the more important heritable trade sociometrically is common sense and emotional intelligence. The biggest key for children’s success is having a non-divorced two-parent family, with parents who have strong work ethics and emotional intelligence.

[Anonymous]

it would be interesting to see a study of how much of these funds are actually a fund transfer from blue states to red states who run a surplus with the federal government so it won't actually save them any money at all,just cutting off services to their citizens

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone with a kid with an IEP better be good at keeping records and adjusting your expectations. If you move from state to state the rules will be different. If the state budget changes, your kid's services may decrease. Fun times.

This is already the case!

It will get far worse. Without DOE things will be less predictable and more fragmented for students with IEPs, leading to potential unequal access to services, delays in service provision, and a greater burden on families to navigate the educational system. While states would still be required to provide special education services, the lack of centralized oversight and support would likely increase disparities in the quality and availability of those services, making it more difficult for students with disabilities to receive the consistent, high-quality education they are entitled to. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:it would be interesting to see a study of how much of these funds are actually a fund transfer from blue states to red states who run a surplus with the federal government so it won't actually save them any money at all,just cutting off services to their citizens

The money won't go back to the blue states fyi. It will go to corporations, their shareholders and wealthy individuals. People who already have a ton of money, but want more so they are taking it from kids. Classy AF.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every single quarter, school districts must file two voluminous tomes of reports with the Department of Education and also with the Department of Commerce.

How do you think those reports get filed? You think somebody chants a spell and waves a magic wand?

It takes 800 labor hours to complete each of those reports. For the Department of Commerce, stupid stuff like how many kilowatt hours of electricity were consumed and how many gallons of water and what did they purchase and what did the sell/auction/destroy/dispose of and what assets were depreciated and how many hours did teachers, staff, administrators and other employees work and how many injuries and reported illnesses and time off and badabeebadaboo.

And that's just for the Department of Commerce quarterly report.

Do you have any idea what school districts spend on compliance?

Compliance is not optional. It's a requirement. Failure to comply invites sanctions for the school district, the State or both and the Departments of Education and Commerce have wide-ranging powers to levy sanctions.

Don't file your quarterly report with the Department of Ed? Better hope there was an earthquake, tornado or hurricane because you're gonna be fined.

The discipline section alone is a nightmare. It's no wonder schools don't want to discipline kids because you gotta spend 40 labor hours gathering the data to report a single incident.

In fact, if you bothered to read any of the reports issued by Senate and House Committees on education you'd know the States spend in excess of 50 Million labor hours to process the paperwork mandated by the federal government.

Y'all whine about teachers salaries, well end the federal mandates and there'll be tons o' money to give teachers a pay raise. In fact, you could probably increase their salaries 50% because that's how much money school districts spend to be compliant with federal mandates.

What the Department of Education does is raise the cost of education without raising student achievement.

Milton Friedman was right. Education need to be publicly funded because it's in the country's best interest but families must have choices.

To that end Arizona does it right. 90% of the money spent on your child at a public school can be used by the family to pay for a private school.

Arizona also added on-line learning to reduce costs to tax-payers.

How? These so-called autistic students are disruptive and distracting and ruin learning in the classroom because of their frequent outbursts and it costs money because school districts have to hire people to help teachers manage these autistic kids in the classroom and the autistic kids aren't learning anything.

By letting those students stay home with their care-giver who knows them way better than school staff and can supervise them properly saves school districts money and the care-giver knows when their child is "in a learning mood" and can get them online to complete tasks and assignments.

It's a win-win for everyone.

Are you kidding me? Former Arizonan with a front row seat to the dismantling of the public education system and the resulting race to the bottom. Plummeting performance, corrupt leadership of privately run charter schools making 7 figures and forcing parents to “fundraise” to tip their underpaid teachers, spending a part time job’s worth of hours to get up to speed on how to play the game and get the best education for your kid, no more neighborhood school friends because everyone drives across the city for the best school they could lottery in to…it is a depressing mess.

I was there for that too! So much corruption.

In TX we just found out that a franchised charter school can send millions of their funds to failing out of state charters. It's a literal grift

Yep. And vouchers are going to be used to support privates and Catholic schools and evangelical fundamentalist schools.

Anyone who can't already afford to attend, or doesn't want to, will be screwed. Including all the special Ed students who aren't going to be accepted at those schools.

The private school tuition with automatically increase by the amount of the voucher/subsidy. This is economics 101

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every single quarter, school districts must file two voluminous tomes of reports with the Department of Education and also with the Department of Commerce.

How do you think those reports get filed? You think somebody chants a spell and waves a magic wand?

It takes 800 labor hours to complete each of those reports. For the Department of Commerce, stupid stuff like how many kilowatt hours of electricity were consumed and how many gallons of water and what did they purchase and what did the sell/auction/destroy/dispose of and what assets were depreciated and how many hours did teachers, staff, administrators and other employees work and how many injuries and reported illnesses and time off and badabeebadaboo.

And that's just for the Department of Commerce quarterly report.

Do you have any idea what school districts spend on compliance?

Compliance is not optional. It's a requirement. Failure to comply invites sanctions for the school district, the State or both and the Departments of Education and Commerce have wide-ranging powers to levy sanctions.

Don't file your quarterly report with the Department of Ed? Better hope there was an earthquake, tornado or hurricane because you're gonna be fined.

The discipline section alone is a nightmare. It's no wonder schools don't want to discipline kids because you gotta spend 40 labor hours gathering the data to report a single incident.

In fact, if you bothered to read any of the reports issued by Senate and House Committees on education you'd know the States spend in excess of 50 Million labor hours to process the paperwork mandated by the federal government.

Y'all whine about teachers salaries, well end the federal mandates and there'll be tons o' money to give teachers a pay raise. In fact, you could probably increase their salaries 50% because that's how much money school districts spend to be compliant with federal mandates.

What the Department of Education does is raise the cost of education without raising student achievement.

Milton Friedman was right. Education need to be publicly funded because it's in the country's best interest but families must have choices.

To that end Arizona does it right. 90% of the money spent on your child at a public school can be used by the family to pay for a private school.

Arizona also added on-line learning to reduce costs to tax-payers.

How? These so-called autistic students are disruptive and distracting and ruin learning in the classroom because of their frequent outbursts and it costs money because school districts have to hire people to help teachers manage these autistic kids in the classroom and the autistic kids aren't learning anything.

By letting those students stay home with their care-giver who knows them way better than school staff and can supervise them properly saves school districts money and the care-giver knows when their child is "in a learning mood" and can get them online to complete tasks and assignments.

It's a win-win for everyone.

Are you kidding me? Former Arizonan with a front row seat to the dismantling of the public education system and the resulting race to the bottom. Plummeting performance, corrupt leadership of privately run charter schools making 7 figures and forcing parents to “fundraise” to tip their underpaid teachers, spending a part time job’s worth of hours to get up to speed on how to play the game and get the best education for your kid, no more neighborhood school friends because everyone drives across the city for the best school they could lottery in to…it is a depressing mess.

I was there for that too! So much corruption.

In TX we just found out that a franchised charter school can send millions of their funds to failing out of state charters. It's a literal grift

Yep. And vouchers are going to be used to support privates and Catholic schools and evangelical fundamentalist schools.

Anyone who can't already afford to attend, or doesn't want to, will be screwed. Including all the special Ed students who aren't going to be accepted at those schools.

The private school tuition with automatically increase by the amount of the voucher/subsidy. This is economics 101

The vouchers are just a coupon for private schools. It might open up some schools to middle class families but the poor will still not be able to attend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:it would be interesting to see a study of how much of these funds are actually a fund transfer from blue states to red states who run a surplus with the federal government so it won't actually save them any money at all,just cutting off services to their citizens

Well, that's what the red state GOP wants anyhow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do people not realize that an educated poor populace is GOOD for the country. We're all better if all of us are well educated.
Now, there will be segregation and money drained from public schools. These parents can't afford to send their students elsewhere. What do these people THINK is going to happen?

Agree. But the poor populace is currently not educated. Baltimore schools have ZERO students that are grade level proficient in math. National averages for grade level proficiency is pretty abysmal as well, with the poorest areas failing in every metric. It can’t get any worse.

Seriously? You say that not a single child in Baltimore is on grade level in math? Thousands of kids from UMC to ESL Not one, across K-12. That if the school is bad IMC parents don’t supplemt and keep their kids above grade level, so that’s how they test?

F’ing miracle my DD at a T25 college is rooming with a physics major from Baltimore who went fairly high into the Renergon awards process then, I guess.

You have zero credibility, so I stopped reading after the “no children” part.