What Happens to Your Kids if We Abolish the Department of Education?

The Department of Education doesn’t handle teaching, set curricula, or pay teacher salaries.

Andrew Heaton | 5.16.2025 12:15 PM

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President Donald Trump and other Republicans want to abolish the Department of Education. If they succeed, what would that actually mean?

Andrew Heaton explains.

Actor/Writer/Producer: Andrew Heaton
Producer: Meredith Bragg
Producer: Austin Bragg
Producer: John Carter

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Longtobefree 2 months ago

They get smarter?
They learn math?
They learn to read?
What happens?

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1. Eeyore 2 months ago
  
  They learn to be anxious and afraid and that maybe getting their genitals mutilated will solve their problems.
  
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  1. Sam Bankman-Fried 2 months ago
    
    I wanted to learn until I found out about Bill Clinton getting BJs…then all I wanted was to get BJs. Why didn’t Demoncraps remove him!?! He ruined my life!!
    
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    1. Zeb 2 months ago
      
      I think that might have been just a coincidence of timing.
      
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    2. Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment 2 months ago
      
      Your life was ruined when your mother didn't abort you.
      
      Log in to Reply
      1. Sam Bankman-Fried 2 months ago
        
        I love abortions!! Abortions for thee but not for me!!
        
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Don't look at me! (This post comes with a 10% tariff) 2 months ago

The Department of Education doesn’t handle teaching, set curricula, or pay teacher salaries.

Typical government department of do nothing.

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1. Speaking for normal people 2 months ago
  
  HE is wrong.
  
  Does Jill Biden strike you as ditzy
  
  “In short, some of the least qualified students, taught by the least qualified professors in the lowest quality courses supply most American public school teachers.”
  ― Thomas Sowell, Inside American Education
  
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  1. JohnZ 2 months ago
    
    Could not have been any better said.
    Those that can, do. Those that can't , teach.
    
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    1. Speaking for normal people 2 months ago
      
      Dang, you completely missed the point
      Those who can are able because someone taught them.
      But we are vitiating that ability by letting the worst go to teachers colleges
      
      Log in to Reply
  2. Super Scary 2 months ago
    
    Uhhh, you mean DOCTOR Jill Biden? I can't even right now.
    
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    1. Gaear Grimsrud 2 months ago
      
      Thank you. Trusting the experts is the libertarian way.
      
      Log in to Reply
2. JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia) 2 months ago
  
  Chicago and California give a ton of teacher pay through doe grants like during covid.
  
  Another example of reason ignoring money is fungible.
  
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Speaking for normal people 2 months ago

YOu refuse to look at this contractually.
IF using my money the school is not edcuating my children, what does that have to do with the Dept of Education? We can say for sure: It certainly didn't help !!!

I've taught college for 10 years. the students are worse every year.
You are arguing a triviality. And of course you are not honest. Biden was goint to open the schools during Covid and teachers unions said "don't you dare" and the cowardly unprinicpled jerk let kids get dumber and dumber.

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1. JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia) 2 months ago
  
  MIT now has pre college math classes for incoming students. Basic algebra and even pre algebra.
  
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  1. Sam Bankman-Fried 2 months ago
    
    I graduated from a very good college having no idea how to write a paper…and now AI makes writing papers an obsolete skill. My strength was in class timed essay tests which apparently is the only way to prevent students from using AI! I was born 30 years too early because girls didn’t like tall handsome funny intelligent educated charming guys like me when I was in my 20s.
    
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    1. Bertram Guilfoyle 2 months ago
      
      Why is that the dumbest fucks here are the ones that brag about their "educations"?
      
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      1. con_fuse9 2 months ago
        
        Hmm, don't remember you bragging about your education.
        
        Log in to Reply
        
        InsaneTrollLogic (Sarcs Kampf mit der Realität) 2 months ago
        
        That's because, unlike you, BG isn't a dumb fuck.
        
        Log in to Reply
    2. Zeb 2 months ago
      
      I still find writing easier than figuring out how to prompt AI to give you what you want.
      
      Log in to Reply
      1. Sam Bankman-Fried 2 months ago
        
        I actually learned to write by commenting on blogs. So in the 1990s not too many opportunities existed to just write for fun. I also couldn’t type and I remember being extremely ashamed that I couldn’t type…and so one day I decided I was going to learn to type and literally by the end of the day I could type good enough that it was no longer embarrassing if someone was looking over my shoulders. And to go along with those things I hated computers.
        
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        Don't look at me! (This post comes with a 10% tariff) 2 months ago
        
        Cool story bro
        
        Log in to Reply
        
        Bertram Guilfoyle 2 months ago
        
        I could type good enough
        
        LOL. You should write for reason.
        
        Log in to Reply
        
        InsaneTrollLogic (Sarcs Kampf mit der Realität) 2 months ago
        
        Commenting on blogs is not the equivalent of writing an article, much less a book. You know, the type without pictures. Most of the writers here cannot seem to differentiate the two and wind up writing articles that make most blog comments (maybe excluding yours and a few others I can name here) semi-coherent by comparison.
        
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    3. Speaking for normal people 2 months ago
      
      NO idea how to write a paper. but you write this. Hmmmmmm
      
      AI makes writing papers a more valuable skill. Now the worst writers have a crutch and the best writers have to be even better.
      
      Class-timed essay tests are never used in my Latin classes. guess that is obvious BUT nothing --- absolutely nothing --- will imporve your overall thinking and communicating skills like LATIN
      
      So, to give a wrap-up sentence : Logically, you are criticizing your 'very good' college and you don't realize it. also you think data equals style. ChatGpt never approaches the shinihg warm thought of St Augustine.
      Maybe you failed but it was in trying to live up to a false standard
      
      Log in to Reply
    4. InsaneTrollLogic (Sarcs Kampf mit der Realität) 2 months ago
      
      Oddly, this makes perfect sense given your idiotic nonsensical moronic stupid, utterly retarded comments here.
      
      Log in to Reply
      1. Speaking for normal people 2 months ago
        
        BTW , you do not have a referent for 'This"
        
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  2. Zeb 2 months ago
    
    Who the fuck are they admitting that they need this (I can probably guess)? I am sure that there are plenty of kids who need that coming out of high school. But surely there are enough studious nerds out there still to fill an incoming MIT class many times over.
    
    Log in to Reply
    1. Incunabulum 2 months ago
      
      Why would a nerd *want* to go to the modern MIT though?
      
      Log in to Reply
    2. NCMB 2 months ago
      
      “But surely there are enough studious nerds out there still to fill an incoming MIT class many times over.”
      
      Perhaps not, and that may be even scarier then them admitting students who can’t perform 10th grade math.
      
      If I’m not mistaken, about 25% of incoming students at public universities are placed in remedial English and/or math classes (90 level courses that do not count toward degree requirements). The failure rate in these courses is pretty high. Admitting these students isn’t doing them any good. Rather than placing them in remedial courses and sending them down the hall to the student aid office to get a $10,000 loan, why not send them to their local community college adult ed program for them to take $100 basic English and Math courses and come back next semester? Failing for $200 is better than failing for $10,000.
      
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      1. sarcasmic 2 months ago
        
        MIT is not a public university, and Jesse is lying.
        
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        NCMB 2 months ago
        
        I didn’t say MIT is a public university.
        
        Regardless, that has no bearing on my assertion that admitting prospective students to any college/university who, based on the institution’s own placement exams, must be placed in remedial English and/or math is a disservice to that prospective student.
        
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        InsaneTrollLogic (Sarcs Kampf mit der Realität) 2 months ago
        
        Narrator: Reading comprehension was not Sarcasmic's strong suit.
        
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    3. sarcasmic 2 months ago
      
      I unmuted Jesse because your response got me curious.
      
      Harvard recently started offering remedial math.
      
      MIT does not.
      
      So Jesse is lying.
      
      As always.
      
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      1. Bertram Guilfoyle 2 months ago
        
        Remember when you got confused by people tweaking their handles and started responding to Jesse while he was "muted"?
        
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      2. InsaneTrollLogic (Sarcs Kampf mit der Realität) 2 months ago
        
        You mute jack shit. You read these comments then lie about having "unmuted" someone so it gives you the appearance of having power over them to yourself. You've no power over any of us, fucko.
        
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      3. charliehall 2 months ago
        
        Bullshit. Harvard offered high school level math when I was there in the 1970s. That is because it wanted to be able to accept students who had attended lousy high schools. MAGA wants only the elite to be able to benefit from education at prestigious universities.
        
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        Speaking for normal people 2 months ago
        
        I was in school in the 70's , math was MUCH BETTER than now.
        I've taught math at the College level. I estimate at least 1/3 of the college class was not even at the 9th grade level
        
        And what matters nationally is
        -
        math-scores-decline-dramatically-on-international-test/U.S. math scores decline dramatically on international test
        https://www.americanexperiment.org/u-s-math-scores-decline-dramatically-on-international-test/
        
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    4. Speaking for normal people 2 months ago
      
      Obviously not. ANd how could it be more obviouis.
      That there are enough studiouis nerds misses the point: The human pond is now being stocked with sub-sub-par humans and that will (speaking of math) swamp the civilization since the quality of any social group is in its average or typical members. That a poorly-spoken lazy stupid (bottom 10 his law class) guy like Biden can be elected means the votrers are getting stupider
      
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  3. JohnZ 2 months ago
    
    We're in big trouble. Soon idiocracy will take over.
    
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    1. sarcasmic 2 months ago
      
      You're believing a liar. Try googling "does MIT offer remedial math" and you'll find he's lying.
      
      Except you won't. You'd rather believe a liar.
      
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      1. DesigNate 2 months ago
        
        Does it really change the underlying problem of its Harvard instead of MIT that is doing remedial maths?
        
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      2. Speaking for normal people 2 months ago
        
        You did the same thing though. It is true of HARVARD
        https://nypost.com/2025/04/05/opinion/harvard-univ-the-ivy-league-teaching-remedial-math/
        
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      3. Speaking for normal people 2 months ago
        
        Except the answer is HARVARD. You just made yourself look like moron
        
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  4. con_fuse9 2 months ago
    
    MIT, 18.01 - beginning math... "Calculus"
    
    MIT does offer "boot camp" via Youtube for free.
    
    I think you are making up facts.
    
    The problem you might have is that some back-water red states don't believe in higher math and science. They support things like a fake Noah's Ark - but not to worry, they now require Bibles in the classroom... so it will all work out OK.
    
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    1. Zeb 2 months ago
      
      Which states are these? I have yet to encounter anyone with religious objections to calculus. Or any state that doesn't contain universities where higher math and science are studied and taught.
      
      Nice bigotry, though.
      
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    2. Incunabulum 2 months ago
      
      You write like you went to one of those redneck schools.
      
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      1. mad.casual 2 months ago
        
        Did you see the part below where he complains that he had to eat hot dogs and ramen so that his kids that he chose to send to school could eat gourmet meals at a private school?
        
        It's like he's specifically trying to generate "shit that didn't/doesn't happen" stories like sarcasmic or mtrueman.
        
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    3. sarcasmic 2 months ago
      
      I think you are making up facts.
      
      You're right there. Jesse can't make a point without lying.
      
      The problem you might have is that some back-water red states don't believe in higher math and science.
      
      That's just dumb, and about as honest as Jesse.
      
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    4. Speaking for normal people 2 months ago
      
      Stupidity like yours puts the problem on a billboard
      
      It is true of Harvard
      https://nypost.com/2025/04/05/opinion/harvard-univ-the-ivy-league-teaching-remedial-math/
      
      ANd 3 adult skills your schooling missed
      1) "red states" dont believe or not believe. that is an impersonal abstraction
      2) And so dumb to say 'fake Noah's Ark" but to be against any teaching about Noah's Ark !! So you are just like what you criticize. Don't learn just accept what anonymous and poor writer Con_fuse9 tells you you must believe
      3) and the error you've littered this place with for so long...There are Bibles and 10 Commandment paintings in the Supreme Court, in the early Founding they were all over., You just assume that could not be so, BECAUSE YOU ARE DUMB
      
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Eeyore 2 months ago

It is 200 billion dollars of tuition inflation. It is 200 billion dollars of corruption in education. It is a 200 billion dollar transfer payment from poor students to rich university administrators. It does nothing constructive. It only harms. It is theft.

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1. Longtobefree 2 months ago
  
  Thanks for noticing.
  
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2. Speaking for normal people 2 months ago
  
  It's worse than that. I have posted this in many forums and been abused but the Economics holds up
  
  "recent data shows that in the past 20 years, college costs have grown twice as fast as the consumer price index (CPI). Similarly, a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that increases in federal lending cause higher tuition"
  
  A 2017 study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that the average tuition increase associated with expansion of student loans is as much as 60 cents per dollar. That is, more federal aid to students enables colleges to raise tuition more. Salaries rise; bureaucracies expand; more courses — from “History and Analysis of Rock Music” to “Ultimate Frisbee” — are offered; dorms, dining halls, and recreational centers become more lavish. Even with all this spending, employers don’t find that new grads are well prepared for the workplace.
  
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  1. Eeyore 2 months ago
    
    It's even worse than that if you look at all of the downstream impact on the economy. Students come out of school broke. At the exact time in their lives when they should be thinking about investing in their future. Paying into a house, their own kids, etc. It hurts their spending power not only slowing the economy but also hurting their quality or life. It hurts the former students. It hurts their communities. It hurts their families.
    
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    1. Sam Bankman-Fried 2 months ago
      
      Harvard and Yale believe student loans for undergraduate are dumb…that means they are dumb.
      
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      1. JohnZ 2 months ago
        
        Harvard and Yale should be burned to the ground.
        
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        Zeb 2 months ago
        
        They have some nice buildings. Just kick all the present occupants out.
        
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        Vernon Depner 2 months ago
        
        That's what neutron bombs are for.
        
        Log in to Reply
        
        jabbermule 2 months ago
        
        😀
        
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        charliehall 2 months ago
        
        Government stealing private property is the kind of thing that libertarians used to hate.
        
        Harvard is literally the oldest corporation in the United States having received its charter in 1650. If Trump can take its assets for no reason, that may be a good thing, as President AOC can take the assets of Tesla and Starlink -- and of every other business that kowtowed to Trump and of every individual that contributed to him, by buying his meme stock, his meme crypto, his overpriced bibles, or stayed at one of his hotels -- or contributed to his campaigns. That would defund MAGA.
        
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        sarcasmic 2 months ago
        
        Many of the concerts I go to in Boston are near Harvard. It's a nice campus. I enjoy walking through it.
        
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        charliehall 2 months ago
        
        Proof that MAGA wants violence.
        
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    2. mad.casual 2 months ago
      
      +1
      
      Don't forget that some of the time it only sets them up to go on to graduate school.
      
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  2. sarcasmic 2 months ago
    
    If you give a bunch of people free money to buy something then the sellers are going to raise the price. They'd be stupid not to.
    
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  3. con_fuse9 2 months ago
    
    When my kids went to college, private schools claimed that 1 year would cost $65,000.
    So, to pay for that, I would be eating hot dogs and noodles while my kid dined on gormet offerings using top of the line gyms and athletic facilities.
    My last year in college, I got a letter explaining the new tuition....
    Cost of living has gone up 3%. Educational institutes use a different basket of goods and their costs had gone up 4%. So tuition for next year will go up 5%.
    ... How nice!
    Whatever you subsidize you will get more of.
    
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    1. Speaking for normal people 2 months ago
      
      Well, well, you can't help lapsing into the moral language after all.
      In your secret heart you wish kids learned gratitude, right from wrong. what a good life consists of, how you should learn how to laarn and not just learn subjects. But you don't like Bibles or 10 Commandments
      
      The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations.
      
      John Adams
      
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3. Eeyore 2 months ago
  
  I have a perfect plan for the department of education assuming Congress doesn't allow Trump to spend less.
  
  Trump hires me as the single employee of the department. He pays me the entire budget. I make sure none of that money is used to fk up education.
  
  I may be willing to agree to spend most of that money primarying representatives who doesn’t promise to abolish the department.
  
  Log in to Reply
4. mad.casual 2 months ago
  
  Yes. Once again, one of Friedman's specific issues with this spending and corruption isn't the cost of the corruption itself, it's downstream multiples of that number lost due to the corruption.
  
  The degree to which the education system can fail is finite. The amount which it can cost society or the world at large in that failure is not.
  
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  1. Speaking for normal people 2 months ago
    
    so free market in schools, Support Oklahoma, charter schools.
    Get rid of nonsense licensing laws, curtaill government interference in schools. Ditch school accreditation
    
    Subscribe to "Academic Questions" from National Association of Scholars and finallyl join ACTA
    
    Log in to Reply
    1. charliehall 2 months ago
      
      Idiot. School accreditation the US is not done by government but by private agencies.
      
      Log in to Reply
      1. Speaking for normal people 2 months ago
        
        Wrong about school accreditation !!!!
        They are protected by government at all levels
        
        "America’s unelected accrediting organizations possess broad power over our nation’s higher education institutions and professional licensure—power unchecked by any meaningful public oversight and power increasingly used to stifle any challenge to the education establishment’s monopoly and to advance a radical political agenda. Our colleges and universities cannot be reformed unless the accrediting organizations are as well. American policymakers must act boldly at both the federal and state levels to reform the abuses that have become endemic in accreditation and licensure. The accrediting organizations’ stranglehold over America’s colleges and professions must be removed."
        
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mad.casual 2 months ago

"You can still sue a school for bringing back segregation."

[tilts hand] If Chicago Schools weren't more segregated today than they were decades ago and/or any given set of numbers otherwise weren't fudged with "Number of non-white" schools, I might be inclined to agree with you.

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1. JohnZ 2 months ago
  
  Public education should be sued for malpractice.
  
  Log in to Reply
  1. mad.casual 2 months ago
    
    The idea of measuring segregation with the metric "number of non-white schools", which is actually the metric a lot of people use to refute the assertion that the schools are more segregated is itself hilarious on several levels.
    
    We got rid of both kinds of racism White *and* European!
    
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2. Speaking for normal people 2 months ago
  
  Even German Hannah Arendt saw this over 60 years ago
  
  Hannah Arendt reveals the tension between the individual and society. Many white parents have responded to the integration of public schools by enrolling their children in private schools. Ironically, most of them are religious private schools. But the fact remains that all children, black or white, are entitled to a quality education in public schools. How can blacks enjoy a quality education if most of the whites are attending private schools?
  
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JohnZ 2 months ago

Throwing more money at education will not solve anything except to create more administrative jobs. The DOE is a failure as well as a fraud. It is as corrupt as the rest of Washington.
Allow the local school districts to determine what's in their best interest for education.
Another step that needs to be taken is the outlawing of the teacher's unions. Teacher have no business forming a union while taxpayers are footing the bill.
Fire teachers who fail to produce results.
Remove flouride from the nation's water supplies.
Return subjects such as auto shop, wood shop and home economics. Bring back the FFA/Future farmers of America.
Not all young people should consider a four or five year degree. End Bill Clinton's college fund scam.
Trade schools need to be elevated to the same level as Harvard or yale.

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1. charliehall 2 months ago
  
  "Remove flouride from the nation's water supplies"
  
  Welfare for dentists. All the dentists I know are expecting huge increases in their incomes because of this incredibly stupid action.
  
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  1. Speaking for normal people 2 months ago
    
    NIH says
    
    "Lately, major concerns about excessive fluoride intake and related toxicity were raised worldwide, leading several countries to ban fluoridation."
    
    Nothing like a corpse with good choppers
    
    Log in to Reply
I, Woodchipper 2 months ago

Get rid of public schools. Problem solved.

This is really the only option to fix any of this. All public schools must be eliminated.

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1. See.More 2 months ago
  
  Get rid of ~~public schools~~ government indoctrination centers. Problem solved.
  
  This is really the only option to fix any of this. All ~~public schools~~ government indoctrination centers must be eliminated.
  
  FIFY
  
  Log in to Reply
  1. charliehall 2 months ago
    
    Public schools have been around in America since the 1630s. To oppose them is un-American. But you are right that they are and in fact have always been indoctrination centers -- the original ones were to indoctrinate children into the extremist Puritan religion. Part of Christian MAGA wants to do that again, with public funds.
    
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    1. Speaking for normal people 2 months ago
      
      Charlies is wrong almost always, the original schols were set up for the OPPOSITE reasons. Charlies is our walking "a mind is a terrible thing to waste" reminder
      
      the reference to education in Article 3 of the the Northwest Ordinance of 1787:
      
      Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.
      
      No mention of Puritanism (which had almost zero presence int he Northwest.
      
      Log in to Reply
Ram0166 2 months ago

I’ve been an advocate for the abolition of the DOE and converting its budget into block grants. Recently I have started saying that the block grants should be contingent on the states converting their public school funding into a voucher system.

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1. TJJ2000 2 months ago
  
  converting the THEFT $ into block grants?
  How about just not doing the THEFT in the first place.
  
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  1. Eeyore 2 months ago
    
    ^ this
    
    Log in to Reply
    1. rbike 2 months ago
      
      Block grants = definition of corruption.
      
      Log in to Reply
  2. Speaking for normal people 2 months ago
    
    YES, why send money to DC where they take a wasteful piggish cut before they send it back much reduced
    
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2. The Angry Hippopotamus 2 months ago
  
  I’ve been an advocate for the abolition of the DOE and converting its budget into block grants.
  
  Except for one minor thing, neither education nor its funding can be found anywhere in the powers enumerated to the government of The United States in Article I Section 8 of The Constitution of The United States of America.
  
  Abolition the Dept of Education and do not spend the money on education, nor repurpose it to any other government entity or activty
  
  Log in to Reply
  1. mad.casual 2 months ago
    
    Except for one minor thing,
    
    It's also still 'He who pays the piper...'. CA sets up a voucher system that prefers diverse schools over performing schools, Asians get fewer vouchers and less acceptance the way loans and grants are handed out for private Universities and students and teachers in rural Montana shuffling kids through trade schools to become welders and mechanics more in line with the job market; and they wind up subsidizing CA's grant/vouchers for degrees in diversity.
    
    Certainly the grants/vouchers *could* be better than what we've got, but it's still nowhere near anything resembling a free market and whatever not-the-DOE organization winds up handing out block grants isn't critically different than the DOE handing out student loans.
    
    Log in to Reply
    1. The Angry Hippopotamus 2 months ago
      
      The first line in my post was a quote from Ram0166. I was responding to it.
      
      Perhaps I was unclear. I'm advocating getting the government of The United States out of education entirely: no Department of Education, no block grants for education, no federal student loans, no federal Pell grants, nothing.
      
      If the morons in Sacramento want to set up a program that funds grants for diverse schools over performing schools in CA (I'm not advocating for that), it can do it with its own state/local level tax revenue, unless or until the voters and taxpayers of CA revolt, and not through the theft from the taxpayers of rural Montana.
      
      I'd prefer the government at all levels be out of the education business altogether, but that's a pipe dream that will never come to fruition; however, the least we can do is get the government of The United States out of education.
      
      Log in to Reply
3. Speaking for normal people 2 months ago
  
  But why do we send a bucket of dough to Washington, get a little back for which we have to say to the "big house" "thank you , maasah" and then spend the little that remains of OUR money.
  
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JFree 2 months ago

No they don't want to get rid of the department. Or reform it. Or anything productive. That would involve work.

They want to virtue signal. Play partisan games. Appear on TV.

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1. TJJ2000 2 months ago
  
  Even if that was the truth ... It's multiple times better than STEALING for Student Loan Forgiveness.
  
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  1. JFree 2 months ago
    
    No it's not. Hypocrisy doesn't make something better
    
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    1. TJJ2000 2 months ago
      
      It's a heck of a lot better than straight-up 'armed-theft' which isn't productive at all.
      THEFT doesn't make sh*T.
      
      Log in to Reply
2. Speaking for normal people 2 months ago
  
  YOu never heard of Bill Bennett ????
  
  Bill Bennett, who served as Secretary of Education under President Ronald Reagan, has been a long-time advocate for abolishing the U.S. Department of Education.
  
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TJJ2000 2 months ago

So another Gov-Gun 'armed' agency that STEALS $270B and disperses $160B. With so much grift you'd think D.C. would be getting bloody rich doing nothing. Oh wait; That's exactly what it's doing.

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1. Eeyore 2 months ago
  
  The DC area has the highest per capita income. It is driven entirely by theft from the tax payers.
  
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JasonT20 2 months ago

Andrew Heaton explains.

If by "explains," you mean that he spends 5 minutes attempting to make jokes and throwing out a few numbers, sure. Oh, and one of the running jokes is that he is too dumb (from having gone to public schools) to do basic arithmetic, like dividing the department's budget by the total number of students in K-12 school in the country.

The education crisis in this country is how so many people think that watching something like this is a substitute for watching (or *gasp* reading) actual news and analysis.

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1. Alberto Balsalm 2 months ago
  
  *Gasp* actual news and analysis sucks. What, exactly, are you whining about?
  
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  1. JasonT20 2 months ago
    
    *Gasp* actual news and analysis sucks.
    
    How does it "suck"? By not entertaining you? By not telling you what you want to hear? Or do you have problems with how accurate and objective they are?
    
    If it is the last one, then you might want to look into the fact that there are a very large number of news sources to choose from. They aren't all the same or run by the same people. Of course, that does mean you'll need to do some actual hard work and examine them for track record of accuracy and objectivity, if you really do value those things.
    
    Or you could just be nihilist about it and figure that nothing is true, none of it matters, so you might as well find things that are entertaining and make you feel good. Then you can go into the voting booth and pick the candidates and party that entertains you and makes you feel good. Don't expect that to lead to politicians that will actually do anything that makes your life better, if that is what you plan to do, though.
    
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Thoritsu 2 months ago

Fantastic! Do it again!

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1. Alberto Balsalm 2 months ago
  
  Agreed. Heaton is great!
  
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charliehall 2 months ago

"The Department of Education doesn’t handle teaching, set curricula, or pay teacher salaries."

It effectively pays the salaries of teachers for severely disabled students. The costs of education of such students are beyond the reach of most small school districts. Trump voters in such districts are going to be horrified at the property tax increases they are about to face.

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1. Speaking for normal people 2 months ago
  
  Charlie, you made a point against yourself and don't realize it.
  Those in such districts will be paying to local government, the sticking point is that otherwise you send that same money to far off DC where they chomp a big bite before sending it back
  
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Speaking for normal people 2 months ago

IF WE WENT BY SCIENCE

Michael Polanyi's work, particularly his concept of "tacit knowledge," highlights the importance of apprenticeships and the role of embodied skills in learning. He argued that many skills are learned through apprenticeship, where one implicitly acquires knowledge and abilities by observing and imitating a master, even if those rules aren't explicitly stated

One last thing...I often hear people talk on Evolution that I know could not pass th 25% mark on a national test of Biology -- now why is that?
While tacit knowledge can be possessed by itself, explicit knowledge must rely on being tacitly understood and applied. Hence all knowledge is either tacit or rooted in tacit knowledge. A wholly explicit knowledge is unthinkable.

Michael Polanyi

The amount of knowledge which we can justify from evidence directly available to us can never be large. The overwhelming proportion of our factual beliefs continue therefore to be held at second hand through trusting others, and in the great majority of cases our trust is placed in the authority of comparatively few people of widely acknowledged standing.

Michael Polanyi

After 10 years teaching college students whose major is Philosophy I affirm that nobody learns anything who doesn't learn how to learn. You graduate and in 5 years obsolescence starst and questions you never even entertained are right in front of you : AI genetic engineering. nanotechnology, quantum computing....

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JohnZ 2 months ago

Abolish the Dept. of Ed. Then abolish the teachers unions.
Allow communities to decide what in their best interests, not some overpaid unelected, faceless, nameless bureaucrat in Washington.
End the stupid guaranteed college loans that was created by scumbag Bill Clinton.
End all federal aid to universities, that includes dumps like Harvard, Yale and U of M.

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Anastasia Beaverhausen 2 months ago

Transcript please!

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Aspiring Statesman 2 months ago

Andrew Heaton is a hoot! He should moonlight at the Babylon Bee!

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CE 2 months ago

Nothing, basically. Maybe the federal government goes broke a week or two later than it might have otherwise.

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What Happens to Your Kids if We Abolish the Department of Education?

The Department of Education doesn’t handle teaching, set curricula, or pay teacher salaries.

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