Closing the Education Department

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They control federal student aid. If they go away- a lot of kids are not going to college

This. At some point folks will become aware that the Dept of Ed contains the 5th largest lending bank in the US. Shutting it down, like everything else Trump holds out as an easy and obvious fix to his slavering base (who are an absolute minority of Americans), is not going to be a straightforward project.

So in other words, shutting off the taps for unlimited money to fund outrageous college tuition might actually do tremendous amounts of work at tackling the issue, because if students can't get money schools will have to stop increasing prices and will have to actually cut tuition.

Sounds like a big win to me.

Now you get it.
It's the same principle as with healthcare. They can charge thousands for an x-ray because that's what Medicare pays out. They can charge hundreds of thousands for a college education because the DOE will lend it. In sane nations the prices of these things are transparent and much lower.

So dumb. No.

1. Brand name colleges, the Harvards, have prices set because of perceived "prestige."
2. State colleges have tuitions set by state law and are mostly funded by the states themselves, not the fed. So I don't see any change there.
3. Maybe SLACS and other private colleges would see lower tuition.

Or maybe, and this is most likely, a lot of schools would shut down, only the rich could afford college anymore, as they are ALREADY PAYING OUT Of pocket, and/or people would be strapped with predatory private loans.
Federal aid has had probably the smallest amount of effect on ballooning tuition, and losing it would have outsized impacts.
SO.DUMB. So simplistic.

I don't really understand it, but for some reason it costs even more to educate kids than what hte colleges are paying. My alma mater is always sending me emails saying that tuition only covers like 80% of the cost. And their tuition is insanely high! I really would like a freakonomics episode explaining to me why this is.

[Anonymous]

Perhaps jobs in education propelled many people into the middle class and upper middle class. Schools keep generations of poor people poor. Schools also create a kindergarten to prison pipeline. Schools keep people from learning English at school or at home, if they aren't speaking English in the home. Schools have become an unsafe place for children who might become victims of school shootings.

Go back to votech classes in high school.

Go back to the time a high school diploma was valued.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is one of Trump’s ideas that sparks outrage. And I’m 100% not voting for Trump (I’m about to go out running with my Harris hat) BUT I have long wondered what the Department of Education does since schools are administered and funded locally and states oversee the establishment of minimal standards and help even out funding for schools in lower income areas. The washington post had an article on this topic this morning but they were light on what exactly would be lost without the department so I am looking for insights here. Curious! What actually happens in the huge building in Washington DC?

"Funded locally?" What white nonsense is this? (TM Titus Andromedon)

The federal government funds about 14% of the public school budget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They control federal student aid. If they go away- a lot of kids are not going to college

This. At some point folks will become aware that the Dept of Ed contains the 5th largest lending bank in the US. Shutting it down, like everything else Trump holds out as an easy and obvious fix to his slavering base (who are an absolute minority of Americans), is not going to be a straightforward project.

So in other words, shutting off the taps for unlimited money to fund outrageous college tuition might actually do tremendous amounts of work at tackling the issue, because if students can't get money schools will have to stop increasing prices and will have to actually cut tuition.

Sounds like a big win to me.

Now you get it.
It's the same principle as with healthcare. They can charge thousands for an x-ray because that's what Medicare pays out. They can charge hundreds of thousands for a college education because the DOE will lend it. In sane nations the prices of these things are transparent and much lower.

You’re out of your depth. Medicare and Medicaid pay the lowest amount of any insurance program in the country. And, what these programs pay are radically transparent being published once a year and available for public comment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:By every metric American kids have fallen far behind their peers around the world since the ED was created. From an educational perspective it’s been an unmitigated disaster. It’s been great for the unions though.

Sounds like someone ought to teach them that correlation does not equal causation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:By every metric American kids have fallen far behind their peers around the world since the ED was created. From an educational perspective it’s been an unmitigated disaster. It’s been great for the unions though.

Sounds like someone ought to teach them that correlation does not equal causation.

Yup.
We’ve also gotten drastically sicker and fatter since the government started giving us dietary guidelines, but that doesn’t mean they caused the problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is one of Trump’s ideas that sparks outrage. And I’m 100% not voting for Trump (I’m about to go out running with my Harris hat) BUT I have long wondered what the Department of Education does since schools are administered and funded locally and states oversee the establishment of minimal standards and help even out funding for schools in lower income areas. The washington post had an article on this topic this morning but they were light on what exactly would be lost without the department so I am looking for insights here. Curious! What actually happens in the huge building in Washington DC?

"Funded locally?" What white nonsense is this? (TM Titus Andromedon)

The federal government funds about 14% of the public school budget.

14% is nothing. That means 86% comes from state and local taxes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:By every metric American kids have fallen far behind their peers around the world since the ED was created. From an educational perspective it’s been an unmitigated disaster. It’s been great for the unions though.

+1. The DOE was yet another failure of the Carter administration in the '70s. Before that, we had the Dept of HEW (Health, Education and Welfare.)

This is going on 50 years. Who with a straight face can say that the quality of any level of education in this country has improved in that time?

It's just more bureaucracy. Never a good thing.

You do realize the states fund the majority of their school budgets and in fact run the schools.

I swear this country would cut off its nose to spite its face just to hear a Republican whisper "less government" in their ear.

[Anonymous]

That’s would mean no more Pell Grants which would be horrible for working class kids

[Anonymous]

Most teachers would be ecstatic if the Department of Ed would shut down. So much extra work is being required of teachers because of bureaucrats who keep mandating what schools can or can’t do. Education is supposed to be entrusted to the states.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most teachers would be ecstatic if the Department of Ed would shut down. So much extra work is being required of teachers because of bureaucrats who keep mandating what schools can or can’t do. Education is supposed to be entrusted to the states.

That's right. If Alabama wants to teach students that the earth as created in a matter of days and that man walked with dinosaurs, I'm all for it.

[Anonymous]

The states are doing an awesome job of providing an equitable education to all kids. At a bare minimum it’d be great if the federal govt could require basic things like universal sex ed and mandate specific science curriculums. That way kids in republican run states are getting an actual education.

The fact that some state boards are still promoting the teaching creationism as scientific theory is an abomination. All kids also deserve a proper sex ed curriculum so they are adequately informed to make decisions that could impact their entire life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Research on what works, grants to implement effective programs

That does not sound inherently governmental. Maybe it should be a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) like Oakridge or the SEI.

??? That is most of what government does, is dispense and manage grants and contracts to the consulting firms who oversee the implementation. When Reagan "cut government" all he did was create an outsource mechanism that made our "government smaller" but booned a huge consulting industry that makes government many times less effective and many times more expensive. If we really wanted to cut government spending, we would go back to the way it was in the 1970's and let the government hire more people to do the actual work and stop outsourcing to recent college grads being billed out at $250,000 a year but being paid $80,000 a year for $25,000 of value.

This. I worked for government contractors and sometimes on site. Why were they paying a company 2x my salary to have me hired? So weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ED gives grants to fund asinine concepts like common core math. No wonder children in the US are so far behind their peers in the developed world in math education and performance.

That was a Bush era award given to his pals. Common Core was run by a Bush friend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really thought I'd see some arguments in this thread for keeping the Dept. of Ed. open. Surprised I haven't.

Instinctively I'm for closing it, because instinctively I'm for less bureaucracy, but I wanted to see why I was wrong.

Same and I’m a teacher. I opened to read some compelling arguments on why it needs to stay open. Public education is filled with waste now.