Since the Department of Education (DOED) came into existence, American students have gone from topping global education charts to continually plummeting scores.
Donald Trump declared in a now-viral video clip from this week’s Pennsylvania rally, “We spend more money per pupil than any other country by far, and yet we’re at the bottom of the list. Out of 40, we’re ranked about number 40. And I'm gonna close the Department of Education and move education back to the states, and we’re gonna do it fast.” Trump ended by speaking directly to New York Republican politician Lee Zeldin, suggesting him as the choice to shutter the DOED and launch the educational reform.
BREAKING: Donald Trump just announced he is going to close down the Department of Education, returning the power to the states, this is huge! pic.twitter.com/biNNa9DIs5
— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) September 24, 2024
The Department of Education, founded by Jimmy Carter in 1979, is unconstitutional; the federal government does not rightfully have the power to superintend and meddle in education, which is supposed to be controlled at the state and local levels. But DOED has also been a failure. American children are less well-educated, more ignorant, more incompetent, and less capable of critical thinking than they were when the department was founded. In most areas of society, when the federal government gets involved in a sector, it just becomes more inefficient, more politicized, more expensive, and less successful. That happened with American education.
AARP reported in 2013 that the “United States has the highest dropout rate in the developed world,” something that changed significantly from boomers to millennials and Gen Z. All the way back in 2003, the Hoover Institution highlighted the literacy crisis: “Among the oldest group in the study (those aged 56–65), U.S. prose skills rose to second place. For those attending school in the 1950s, SAT scores reached an all-time high.”
Furthermore, “Americans educated in the sixties captured a Bronze Medal in literacy, those schooled in the seventies got 5th place in the race. But those schooled in the nineties ranked 14th,” Hoover added. The rising generation of students is in the worst condition after the educational catastrophe of the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Related: U.S. Students’ Scores Drop As Districts Prioritize DEI
Harvard’s Center for Education Policy Research noted last year that “where students fell behind by more than 1.5 years in math—[teachers] would have to teach 150 percent of a typical year’s worth of material for three years in a row—just to catch up. That is simply not going to happen without a major increase in instructional time.”
The reading and math scores for U.S. 13-year-olds in 2023 had reportedly nosedived to the lowest level seen in decades. As of Dec. 2023, “Math scores for U.S. students plummeted to an all-time low on international exams that marked the first comparison of global achievement since the pandemic.”
Meanwhile, also in 2023, the largest teachers’ union made the defense of LGBTQ individuals and LGBTQ propaganda its primary priority. With teachers and administrators who prefer to provide your ten-year-old with homosexual porn rather than teaching him the multiplication table and aiming to drive any teacher out of the system who disagrees, it’s no wonder kids aren’t learning anything in school.
It is worth noting too that college degrees in particular have become much more expensive, and simultaneously much less valuable, since Carter founded the DOED in 1979. In 2018, USA Today reported 1979’s “Private tuition, fees, room and board per year: $5,010 (inflation adjusted: $17,270)” and “Public tuition, fees, room and board per year: $2,330 (inflation adjusted: $8,030).”
Fast forward to the 2023-2024 academic year, when the average tuition and fees for a private college were reportedly $41,540, for a public college in-state $11,260, and for public put-of-state $29,150. All that extra money for a Queer Colonial Gender Studies Degree with extracurricular activities of pro-Hamas riots.
Related: Ivy League Idiocy: Barnard Offers ‘Queer Caribbean Critique’ Course
There are, of course, multiple factors feeding into these various U.S. school statistics, including educational progress in other countries and the politicization (particularly the wokification) of education, prioritizing leftist propaganda over real skills and useful knowledge. It is also important to note that not only have scores gone down, but modern scores tend to be inflated and based on easier standards, meaning that the downward trend in American education is even worse than the statistics reflect.
It would be wonderful to see Trump and state officials initiate an educational reform that follows Booker T. Washington’s plan: namely, quality classical education, patriotic and age-appropriate, accompanied by required manual labor or other skill development (sewing, construction, plumbing, etc.). It’s a model that schools can adapt for almost all ages. But we know one thing for certain: something has to be done before America’s youth becomes irretrievably and functionally illiterate.
The main point, in fact, is that the Department of Education, besides being unconstitutional, is a total failure.
