Editorial by Jessica Marie Baumgartner |
The federal Department of Education is an abomination. It has failed students and their communities for years.
While those who cannot fathom learning without government schools balk at the idea of giving educational freedom back to the states and The People, those of us who lived through the continued decline of American education know that the only way to save our children’s ability to learn and grow through the pursuit of knowledge is to finally throw the federal government out of the educational process and give students the individualized educational path they need to grow and learn properly.
For too long government schools have espoused the false belief that only “experts” can teach others. They have vilified independent thought and anyone who dares to seek wisdom from unconventional teachers.
Even before the Department of Education was formed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Every Student Succeeds Act, which gave the federal government authority over state education standards through taxpayer funding.
Funding, funding, funding. It’s always been about the funding. But when parents “follow the money” they quickly learn that federal governance of education has been an incredible waste of time, money, and our children’s successes.
The decline of education
Each decade after the federal government got involved, things got worse for students. Up until the 1960s movement, civics classes were an American education standard, but according to the National Education Association, these lessons diminished in the 1970s and 80s as the federal government’s role in education grew.
During the 1990s I struggled through my public school education because I didn’t sit still well. I wanted to do things, build things, make things. I loved doing science experiments, but these were few and far between while book lessons that put me to sleep continued as I daydreamed or wrote pages of letters, notes, songs — whatever I could to keep my mind occupied.
The school tried to get my mom to put me on medication to calm me down. Pushing pills was already on their agenda. But instead, my mom declined and put me in sports and other activities to help me get my energy out.
It took me a long time to realize that children are not meant to sit for hours on end being taught to memorize lines from textbooks. Once I understood that, I understood myself and learned better.
A place for liberal ideology
Public school was also a place where liberal ideology was booming in the 1990s. I was scolded for praying before lunch in the fifth grade. One of the teachers overseeing us told me I might offend some of the other students. I knew that had to be wrong because the school had no problem allowing my best friend, who was a Muslim student, to carry out her religious fast, so I told my parents and they raised hell.
In middle school, a group of Zero Population speakers were guest speakers in my math class. They told us that we shouldn’t have more than two children and that having no children at all was good for the environment. By high school, this became an all-class assembly.
Don’t have kids, students! Or at least no more than two. The world is dying because you’re killing it—THAT was the message we all received. And I didn’t tell my parents because I was so deeply indoctrinated that I thought it was an honest lesson.
It wasn’t until I considered having my third baby later in life that I realized how deeply this message was programmed into me. I felt guilty. I felt bad for wanting to bring another loving person into this world and teach him to be a good person.
But that is just my story. Every American public student has one, especially children of the new millennia.
An educational story
In the year 2000, the National Center for Education Statistics published their first report highlighting comparisons in academic achievement across the globe. This Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) highlight found that American 15-year-olds ranked 15th in the world’s academics.
But by 2022, PISA’s International Comparisons of Student Achievement placed American 15-year-old students in 34th place. How could we have slipped so far in just 20 years?
2002 was a pivotal year. This was when the No Child Left Behind Act was signed. According to the White House Archives, this “bipartisan” policy increased federal education funding, focused on increased standardized testing, and began the push to focus on minority students in a new light.
George Carlin once said, “The word bipartisan usually means some larger-than-usual deception is being carried out.” No Child Left Behind was just that. More money and power for the Department of Education meant less academic achievement from students in government schools.
The federal government’s focus on race and identity seeped into lessons and year-by-year academics fell by the wayside. Then came Common Core and things only got worse.
The push to make Common Core lessons the standard was addressed in an academic study titled The State of State and the Common Core in 2010. This asserted that Common Core learning would be more successful than traditional education practices, but Common Core overcomplicated simple concepts and devastated students.
Schools began to lose accreditation as children failed more tests. This set my family on a unique path in 2012.
Educational failure, state by state
I lived in the Normandy School District area of Missouri at the time and my firstborn was just two years old. Normandy lost its accreditation, per EdWeek, and suddenly everyone was asking what I was going to do for her education.
There was no money for private schools. I figured I could teach preschool and the lower classes and go from there. Thus my long journey to being a homeschooling-parent began. It wasn’t a choice. It was a necessity.
We didn’t flee the public education system, it failed us before my daughter even had a chance to try it.
I quickly learned we were better off for it. By 2016, other schools were struggling. In the city of Baltimore, for example, 6 different public schools didn’t even have one student that could pass math or reading, per K12 Dive.
In 2017, five different South Carolina schools were facing losing their accreditation as well, per local WRDW News.
Instead of ditching Common Core or asking parents for input, the Department of Education dug its heels in and continued its further descent into destruction. In Seattle, public schools started teaching the theory that math was “appropriated” by Western culture and somehow put minority students at a disadvantage, per EdWeek.
Within two years, the Washington Policy Center reported that Washington public schools were lowering academic standards and welcoming Critical Race Theory lessons that focused on race instead of teaching simple numbers.
Just last month, the Seattle Times reported that Washington eighth-grade students have not been proficient in math since before 2014.
While plenty of lawmakers are blaming the 2020 pandemic for government education failures, the Department of Education is truly the root of all ills in public schools. After the pandemic, the education system only got worse.
In 2021, multiple California school districts decided to reduce their use of giving students failing grades. Instead, students who failed were allowed multiple do-overs, per 8 News Now.
New York has decided to phase out their state high school exit test: the Regents exams. According to Chalkbeat, these will no longer be required starting in the 2027-2028 school year.
Across the nation, educational standards have been lowered and students are still failing. This is despite public schools receiving an average of over $17,000 per student, via Education Data.
Meanwhile, the National Home Education Research Institute found that homeschooled students rank higher in academic achievement than public school students, even though the average homeschooling family pays for about $600 in education material per student each year.
Public schools never needed more funding. They have been wasting our money while claiming they’re trying to help.
What our children deserve
American children deserve lessons that help them understand and enjoy the world around them, not the Department of Education’s long history of failure. For years American taxpayers have been owed a refund. And now, with the Trump administration considering abolishing the federal Department of Education, we have the opportunity to take that funding and give it to the states and parents.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., has reintroduced H.R. 899 to finally terminate the Department of Education. Instead of waiting for President Donald Trump to do everything, House members once again have the opportunity to finally rid families of this education succubus.
The Department of Education should have been abolished years ago. It honestly never should have been created. But we are at a pivotal moment in American education and now is the time to give our students a better future. Get the federal government out of schools, cut bloated education budgets, and give the rest of the funding back to the states and the families who know what’s best for their children.
Photo: Adobe Stock
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