Left isn't dumb, they went after DeVoss so hard for good reason

[CitizenBBN]

As I posted before, I think Trump's pursuit of education reform may be, long term, one of the two most critical things he does as President, the other being his judicial appointments.

DeVoss is a champion of vouchers and charter schools, essentially anything that introduces the free market into education and breaks the government monopoly. her reasons I believe are based in the fact that free markets perform better and deliver better product, and will thus improve education quality for many millions of trapped students not wealthy enough to have other options in poor districts.

But the left knows the real risk: their strangle hold on the indoctrination centers that schools have become would potentially be broken if non-union, non-bureaucrat schools become too common. I went to both in my life, and I can say that while neither was "conservative", the private school never had to answer to a union, the teachers never had to tow the line or teach the proscribed material. The teachers were given broad latitude to cover the overall topics of the class, and then were judged on that basis for retention, raises, etc.

A whole nation without the teacher's unions and the bureaucrats, heck some actual balance may creep into things, and rural and red state parents with different values than the national mantra of liberalism may suddenly have options to send their kids to schools that reflect their values.

Of course that also means options for people of faith too. If you get a voucher for $X and can spend it anywhere you like, then I'm betting there is a market for schools in a lot of this country that can hang the 10 Commandments and have a Nativity scene or even Santa Claus and a Christmas Play with O Holy Night in it. Think a school like that in the right location may get some students? one that also offers better actual education, gives teachers more authority to teach and less bureaucracy, and real power to discipline students so parents know the dealers and thugs aren't going to be bullying their kids?

Damned right they're scared about the direction DeVoss has for this country. Not b/c it will hurt kids, but b/c it will break their stranglehold on a key battleground in the cultural wars. Of course it will also help millions of kids learn to read, write and do math better too, but they're willing to sacrifice that if it means keeping themselves in power.

This issue is perhaps most close to my heart of all the policy issues out there. it's a fundamentally sound way to improve education, get more kids out of poverty, and break the Left's hold on how young minds are influenced.

I don't want conservative indoctrination either btw, what I want is kids forced to think an analyze and have critical thinking skills, and kids presented with all the facts and forced to deal with the fact that they aren't always consistent or clear.

[badrose]

To wit:

http://www.wkbw.com/news/was-buffalo...oling-decision

[Darrell KSR]

I have many issues with DeVoss, but I like the basics of the voucher system. Alas, after I paid 21 years of 5 kids in Parochial School (most years with multiple), but maybe someone else will benefit.

[dan_bgblue]

Darrell, what I like most about her, is she intends to give control of the public school systems back to the states and local officials. No more national curriculum or mandates from Washington. I know that there will be localities that will not handle the responsibility well, but at least the citizens will have the opportunity to replace board members and demand better. On the other hand a vast majority of the local systems will flourish under local control. jmho

[Darrell KSR]

Well, you won't like this, but I don't think a collection of local is any better than a national oversight. I view it as a segregation of component parts, with a lot of opportunities to fail. As we have migrated into more of a cross-borders nation with the evolution of transit better abling all to traverse invisible lines, it is more important than ever for the nation to be well-educated, rather than pockets of the nation. Putting blame on component parts, or links in a chain, just doesn't work for me. It's not enough that I can say that "Louisiana is backwoods, so they deserve what they get." Unless we're talking about college football or baskeball, it affects all of us.

You have faith in the local ability to be free from whatever ills exist in a national system. I don't.

Having said all of that, please note how carefully I am carving my words. I said I didn't think it is any better. I also don't think it is any worse. I don't view it as a "mistake," per se, at least not yet. I'm not opposed to it. It will shift responsibility and blame. Some of that will be handled well. Others won't.

[dan_bgblue]

Darrell, I have faith in some local communities to succeed where today they are hamstrung by federal guidelines and curriculum. As I originally said, there will be failures, but those failures will be because of local politics, not national ones. As you said local control may or may not be worse than what we have today in some cases. The cases where education is important to the community "should" flourish.

I have two relatives employed by local school districts, and one of them is very close to me. My daughter is a speech language pathologist that works with young students to improve their abilities to speak and comprehend what is being spoken to them. A huge amount of her time is spent on paperwork to justify the federal money that is being given to the school for these programs. She will welcome the local control over what she does every day.

I also have a very biased view of K-12 education because the local county and city schools in BG are superior educational opportunities for the students in spite of federal regulations. They will only become better when the federally mandated curriculum is trashed and they have control over what is taught in their classroom. On the other side of the coin if schools in Louisiana are "backwoods" then it is not likely, in many or most cases, that local control will help, but the same can be said for federal control that is in place today. jmho

You value the education offered to your children, and that is obvious as you chose to have them educated in private schools, but if Uncle Sam had it's way those private schools would not exist as every child deserves to have the same opportunity to sink or swim in the public educational system. I do not want the Feds dumbing down every school so that all opportunities will be equal. I agree that it is vital to this nation to have educated citizens.

[MickintheHam]

I agree, Dan. The schools have become a test lab for the latest radical ideas.

[dan_bgblue]

America's kids got more stupid in reading, math and science

American school kids became more stupid under the Obama administration, according to rankings released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

They recently released the results of a worldwide exam administered every three years to 15-year-olds in 72 countries. The exam monitors reading, math and science knowledge.

Based on their findings, the United States saw an 11-point drop in math scores and nearly flat levels for reading and science.

The Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, fell below the OECD average – and failed to crack the top ten in all three categories.

[CitizenBBN]

We spend more per child than anyone in the world and have far worse results than equivalent nation. Yet the rallying cry of the Left is "more of the same". It's pathetic they are willing to trap children in failed systems in order to maintain their unions and their ability to control the message of indoctrination.

I have no problem debating the policy of vouchers versus other options, none. But that's not what the Left does, arguing for example that those schools will only get worse, economies of scale, etc.. Fine, let's have that discussion. I'm confident b/c we're talking basic market principles versus government monopoly and I have 250 years of good empirical evidence to use, but that's an intellectually honest discussion.

What we're getting though is this same "smear the conservative" crap where anyone who is for vouchers or market based solutions to education is a racist, sexist homophobe who wants to starve the poor.

What IMO is beyond dispute is that the current system is a failure. We spend more and get less than dozens of countries. The evidence on that part is in, this isn't working nearly as well as it does elsewhere. Period.

So the question is what to do, and the only plan offered by the Left is more indoctrination from more centralized bureaucracy and more money thrown at problems that aren't monetary.

[bigsky]

choice

[KeithKSR]

America's kids got more stupid in reading, math and science

American school kids became more stupid under the Obama administration, according to rankings released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

They recently released the results of a worldwide exam administered every three years to 15-year-olds in 72 countries. The exam monitors reading, math and science knowledge.

Based on their findings, the United States saw an 11-point drop in math scores and nearly flat levels for reading and science.

The Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, fell below the OECD average – and failed to crack the top ten in all three categories.

There is a negative correlation in education between federal government involvement and achievement. Our schools did a better job before the Feds got involved during the Eisenhower administration than they do now.

[dan_bgblue]

choice

It is actually as simple as that one word isn't it? Nice job sir

[KeithKSR]

I switched from math to social studies last year, as I am certified in both areas. The primary reason I switched was because we have been pushed to teach content by the test, and not what students need. We have one class period where we pulled out weaker students and worked with them. Kids were weak on basic skills, so that is what we were teaching. Central office staff found out about what we were doing and we were told to teach them higher level critical thinking skills instead. These kids had no shot at being able to think critically, because their weakness in basic skills was an impediment.

That is the problem with the current system, there is no way the people in Washington, or Frankfort for that matter, can properly evaluate the needs of the students in my classroom.

[UKHistory]

Keith,

I have a question based on your comment, "there is no way the people in Washington, or Frankfort for that matter, can properly evaluate the needs of the students in my classroom."

With states have their own standards and school districts selecting their own curriculums (and I am not criticizing that) how can we truly evaluate student performance and by extension the performance of the teachers and staff?

And while there is no question that the student, his or her parents and the classroom teacher are best positioned to evaluate the needs of the student, where is the accountability beyond them?

Don't we have to have a way of measuring student performance across the country and what way is better and or more efficient than standardized tests?

I hear a lot about teaching to the tests. But aren't the tests aligned with the basic facts/knowledge points that students should have mastered by the given grade level?

I will concede your every point, if you tell me how we can properly gauge student achievement in the classroom.

[dan_bgblue]

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/...s_program.html

[UKHistory]

Dan's link is a great example of where standards are lowered to give the appearance that more students are succeeding in the classroom.

Now this is a great example of shying away from high standards and accountability.

[dan_bgblue]

It is also a perfect example of Darrell's concerns about local control of schools. I would counter that if there were not federal mandates for test scores and graduation rates to keep the money from Washington flowing to the public schools system's coffers, there would be less of a need to fake it and get down to educating the nations youth. jmho

[UKHistory]

It is also a perfect example of Darrell's concerns about local control of schools. I would counter that if there were not federal mandates for test scores and graduation rates to keep the money from Washington flowing to the public schools system's coffers, there would be less of a need to fake it and get down to educating the nations youth. jmho

And without Federal mandates, minorities would have remained in schools that were deemed to be separate and not equal. Without the testing requirements by demographics under No Child Left Behind, schools can look really good but hide the poor performing minority students.

Without Federal mandates programs like Title IX would not require schools to invest in athletic opportunities for girls (among other things) that have proven to be effective in helping young girls stay in school, go to college, avoid drugs and teen pregnancy.

Do you like to know if your tax dollars are being used wisely? Academic benchmarks while not perfect can be a measurment to show that tax dollars are fulfilling their purpose.

With the Federal mandates or state mandates for that matter, if there is no accountability things don't get done.

If Cal doesn't push the players in practice then getting down to the business of winning basketball games won't be accomplished.

Accountability is hard. And frankly there are a lot of uninformed people. Some with greater or lesser capacity to learn.

People don't want to blame the teachers. They don't want to blame the parents and they don't want to blame the kids.

Folks in Washington are an easy target.

There is plenty of accountability to go around.

Competition is good. But a good private school, with a limit to capacity would be stupid in taking vouchers from the most challenged academic performers. Especially when they can recruit the brightest of the poor children.

What I like about public education is that we as a nation (with states leading the way) have said for the good of our democracy every student should have access to quality public education.

That is noble. That is right. It isn't perfect and in a system where I can earn more money teaching adults in a Federal job and in the future as a contractor than I could ever in a public classroom working with kids, we get what we get.

[Darrell KSR]

No perfect solution, boys and girls. But we need improvement in public and private schools. Not enough to carve out niche markets. We need a nationwide overhaul improvement. Wish I was smart enough to figure out how to do it.

[UKHistory]

No perfect solution, boys and girls. But we need improvement in public and private schools. Not enough to carve out niche markets. We need a nationwide overhaul improvement. Wish I was smart enough to figure out how to do it.

If it was easy, it would already be done. Nothing is perfect. And everything can be improved. I agree we need an overhaul in many ways.

The toughest part in the equation is the challenge itself. In business and in sports if you have poor employees or players, you get better ones.

Yes schools can get better teachers but the real challenge is those to be served. For what we can't do is go better students with better parents. Come election time it is never a child's fault or his voting age parents. It is always the school or the government.

[Catonahottinroof]

On the college side....A good start would be rid curriculums of some of the ridiculous Liberal Arts degrees being offered. It is much of the reason many have $100k+ student debt and can't get a job to pay for it.

[UKHistory]

On the college side....A good start would be rid curriculums of some of the ridiculous Liberal Arts degrees being offered. It is much of the reason many have $100k+ student debt and can't get a job to pay for it.

Why is it a good start? A person could have any type of "ridiculous" undergrad degree and then go onto law school or become a cpa.

Seems to me the critical thinking of the individual and the common sense of the parent who usually helps pay the bill is in question.

Again goes back to allegedly poorly educated students and parents.

[Catonahottinroof]

If they could get accepted versus the student who was pre-law /accounting as their undergraduate focus. Your example is true, particularly of law degree students, however it's a substantial minority of students. And yes, I have 2 college age kids. One chose to pursue a skill and join the job market. My daughter is a sophomore at The Citadel.

Why is it a good start? A person could have any type of "ridiculous" undergrad degree and then go onto law school or become a cpa.

Seems to me the critical thinking of the individual and the common sense of the parent who usually helps pay the bill is in question.

Again goes back to allegedly poorly educated students and parents.

[CitizenBBN]

And while there is no question that the student, his or her parents and the classroom teacher are best positioned to evaluate the needs of the student, where is the accountability beyond them?

Don't we have to have a way of measuring student performance across the country and what way is better and or more efficient than standardized tests?

I hear a lot about teaching to the tests. But aren't the tests aligned with the basic facts/knowledge points that students should have mastered by the given grade level?

I will concede your every point, if you tell me how we can properly gauge student achievement in the classroom.

Not Keith, but let me ask this question: why do we need to have a standardized measure of performance and accountability?

At one time America had the finest basic education system in the world. I suggest reading Alexis de Tocqueville, esp. "Democracy in America", where he discusses how stunned he is with the quality of education in the US and how it permeated all classes as opposed to Europe where only the rich got an education.

At that time there was absolutely NO federal involvement in education whatsoever. In fact there was almost no state involvement. Education was local. People got together, got the school, the town hall, the church built and that was that.

Why does the federal government need to be involved at all? Why do they need a numeric measurement of performance? I know of no federal measurement that drives innovation in computer chip designs yet we do great there.

We continued to have a great education system compared to the rest of the world in fact up until the states and feds became so heavily involved. Then we got a whole different set of priorities, many quasi-political, versus a focus on the fundamentals.

ANd in fact we have well established national tests for measuring achievement already, and done 100% privately, with the ACT and SAT. They aren't perfect, but I trust the free market, even driven by colleges as clients, more than I trust the federal bureaucracy to come up with a test.

I'm confident that to the extent we need measurements of things that we will get them without having to tolerate massive federal involvement, control and expense. We in fact already had some decent ones back when we had much better education for far less money.

one has to have faith that not all good outcomes need to be centrally planned and structured. Just get out of the way and let people take care of it themselves in their own local worlds and the big macro level stuff will all be fine by definition.

[UKHistory]

Here is a little bit about the Department of Education. Learn more at ed.gov

Overview
Education is primarily a State and local responsibility in the United States. It is States and communities, as well as public and private organizations of all kinds, that establish schools and colleges, develop curricula, and determine requirements for enrollment and graduation. The structure of education finance in America reflects this predominant State and local role. Of an estimated $1.15 trillion being spent nationwide on education at all levels for school year 2012-2013, a substantial majority will come from State, local, and private sources. This is especially true at the elementary and secondary level, where about 92 percent of the funds will come from non-Federal sources.

That means the Federal contribution to elementary and secondary education is about 8 percent, which includes funds not only from the Department of Education (ED) but also from other Federal agencies, such as the Department of Health and Human Services' Head Start program and the Department of Agriculture's School Lunch program.

Although ED's share of total education funding in the U.S. is relatively small, ED works hard to get a big bang for its taxpayer-provided bucks by targeting its funds where they can do the most good. This targeting reflects the historical development of the Federal role in education as a kind of "emergency response system," a means of filling gaps in State and local support for education when critical national needs arise.


History
The original Department of Education was created in 1867 to collect information on schools and teaching that would help the States establish effective school systems. While the agency's name and location within the Executive Branch have changed over the past 130 years, this early emphasis on getting information on what works in education to teachers and education policymakers continues down to the present day.

The passage of the Second Morrill Act in 1890 gave the then-named Office of Education responsibility for administering support for the original system of land-grant colleges and universities. Vocational education became the next major area of Federal aid to schools, with the 1917 Smith-Hughes Act and the 1946 George-Barden Act focusing on agricultural, industrial, and home economics training for high school students.

World War II led to a significant expansion of Federal support for education. The Lanham Act in 1941 and the Impact Aid laws of 1950 eased the burden on communities affected by the presence of military and other Federal installations by making payments to school districts. And in 1944, the "GI Bill" authorized postsecondary education assistance that would ultimately send nearly 8 million World War II veterans to college.

The Cold War stimulated the first example of comprehensive Federal education legislation, when in 1958 Congress passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik. To help ensure that highly trained individuals would be available to help America compete with the Soviet Union in scientific and technical fields, the NDEA included support for loans to college students, the improvement of science, mathematics, and foreign language instruction in elementary and secondary schools, graduate fellowships, foreign language and area studies, and vocational-technical training.

The anti-poverty and civil rights laws of the 1960s and 1970s brought about a dramatic emergence of the Department's equal access mission. The passage of laws such as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 which prohibited discrimination based on race, sex, and disability, respectively made civil rights enforcement a fundamental and long-lasting focus of the Department of Education. In 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act launched a comprehensive set of programs, including the Title I program of Federal aid to disadvantaged children to address the problems of poor urban and rural areas. And in that same year, the Higher Education Act authorized assistance for postsecondary education, including financial aid programs for needy college students.

In 1980, Congress established the Department of Education as a Cabinet level agency. Today, ED operates programs that touch on every area and level of education. The Department's elementary and secondary programs annually serve nearly 18,200 school districts and over 50 million students attending roughly 98,000 public schools and 32,000 private schools. Department programs also provide grant, loan, and work-study assistance to more than 12 million postsecondary students.


Mission
Despite the growth of the Federal role in education, the Department never strayed far from what would become its official mission: to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.

The Department carries out its mission in two major ways. First, the Secretary and the Department play a leadership role in the ongoing national dialogue over how to improve the results of our education system for all students. This involves such activities as raising national and community awareness of the education challenges confronting the Nation, disseminating the latest discoveries on what works in teaching and learning, and helping communities work out solutions to difficult educational issues.

Second, the Department pursues its twin goals of access and excellence through the administration of programs that cover every area of education and range from preschool education through postdoctoral research. For more information on the Department's programs see the President's FY 2017 Budget Request for Education.


Staffing
One final note: while ED's programs and responsibilities have grown substantially over the years, the Department itself has not. In fact, the Department has the smallest staff of the 15 Cabinet agencies, even though its discretionary budget alone is the third largest, behind only the Department of Defense and the Department of Health and Human Services. In addition, the Department provides over $150 billion in new and consolidated loans annually.

[CitizenBBN]

Not sure what you're getting at there History, but your post does in fact prove my point very well.

Note that the site points out that it is now the THIRD largest budget behind defense and health care. Also note the timeline, that it was promoted to a full cabinet department in 1980, and that it now spends $150 billion in loans and per Wiki their regular budget is $70 billion. I don't know how the loans count in, but if they're just behind defense and medicine they have a big big budget.

Now let's look at how all that money (not counting obviously the huge increases in state and local budgets) spent since 1980 has helped:



As we can see, since the rough establishment of federalized education spending has skyrocketed as the actual results have changed little.

Now let's look just at federal spending as a percentage change over time versus improvement in scores:



As the graph shows, Reagan was no fan of the DoE so spending went up little, but after him it went up very fast and under Obama has skyrocketed even more.

Yet again, the results of all that spending has been basically zilch in terms of actual improvement in ability to read, write, or do math. The fundamentals are not the target of all that money. What has gone up is the number of bureaucrats and the amount spent on facilities and non-core educational initiatives.

The obvious conclusion is that the focus on spending huge sums at the federal level for education, education testing and everything else has netted no real gains in the actual quality of that education.

There may be other factors, for example dropout rates have been declining during this period, but that rate has been pretty linear over a long period and doesn't tie well to all the spending. It may help, but not much.

And in the end the unavoidable fact is this: MANY industrial countries spend less on education than the US and have better results in core competency such as math, science, reading. When we're spending that much more and getting less, it's time to examine the very core assumptions of what we are doing.

As a nation built on free markets, vaulting us from afterthought backwater to the most powerful economy the world has known, why would we reject any use of free market principles in our education system on the principle that they are in some way just inherently evil? It's nonsense.

[UKHistory]

Fewer ED employees today than under Reagan. There are not that many bureaucrats at ED and certainly not a lot in Frankfort. A sizable amount of the money under Obama was recovery act funds that helped keep teachers employed.

Also at ED is a listing of the programs like all agencies. Interesting ED's site notes USDA breakfast and lunch program and references programs targeting at risk youth from HHS but quite possibly other agencies too like Justice, HUD, etc.

Many countries spend less because they also don't have the same demographic issues nor do they promote the same level of equal access to education that we do.

The average grant award at ED is around $600,000 a year. A good chunk of that goes to salary of staff that work with kids.

But again the reality is that 8% of a given school's budget is federal dollars (give or take who can write a competitive grant well). When you wonder why things suck look at the kids, their parents and the teachers.

ED staff are not micromanaging what takes place in your classroom.

Elementary and Secondary Education Act requires states to have standards and to measure student achievement. States come up with that themselves.

ED doesn't create these; for profits do. The ACT and SAT cost money and not every student will take those tests so it doesn't necessarily give us good numbers for all students. Only students who are trying to get into college.

I am open to competition and choice. For profit organizations are not motivated the same as non-profit or community organizations. I am not saying they are better or worse but different.

In terms of real of government savings, cause even the millions we are talking about don't compare to medicare, medicaid and social security, cut those right now.

If anyone wants to really cut the deficit, just abolish those programs and let survival of the fittest win out.

Seriously. Not even defense compares to those entitlement programs.

My concern over the secretary is that when asked a legitimate question about the need for school personnel to be armed she cited bears. I love the second amendment. I am just not sure bears are the reason to arm school personnel.

She also didn't understand the ADA and the importance of public schools and all public buildings being accessible to disable kids.

[KeithKSR]

Keith,

I have a question based on your comment, "there is no way the people in Washington, or Frankfort for that matter, can properly evaluate the needs of the students in my classroom."

With states have their own standards and school districts selecting their own curriculums (and I am not criticizing that) how can we truly evaluate student performance and by extension the performance of the teachers and staff?

And while there is no question that the student, his or her parents and the classroom teacher are best positioned to evaluate the needs of the student, where is the accountability beyond them?

Don't we have to have a way of measuring student performance across the country and what way is better and or more efficient than standardized tests?

I hear a lot about teaching to the tests. But aren't the tests aligned with the basic facts/knowledge points that students should have mastered by the given grade level?

I will concede your every point, if you tell me how we can properly gauge student achievement in the classroom.

History, the problem is that at present we are not consistently measuring student performance. Each state has its own testing system that kind of measures what the Feds want measured, but doesn't really measure with any kind of accuracy. The system has made Pearson a bundle of money, but the tests are useless in gaining any meaningful information.

The schools receive a score for each student, and little else. Poorer students can outscore better students by getting an easier version of the test. Questions students are given come from outside the curriculum, and are chosen by a testing company (Pearson in many cases) that determines the question sort of fits what is in the curriculum.

On the other hand, students could be given a much less expensive norm-referenced test, like CTBS. The feedback from CTBS shows exactly how the student faired against the nation and the state. This type of test gives feedback regarding how the student faired within the various strands of the subject being tested. These are prescriptive tests, they tell what areas a student needs to focus more time on in order to be successful.

The initiatives that make our school successful are all locally driven, and not programs that the Feds have any input in. Each and every Student in our school has two Math classes a day, some of the students have three Math classes a day. Each student has a Reading class, which is in addition to the Language Arts class they also have. We use computer based programs in Math (ALEKS Math) and Reading (Reading Plus) which provide a prescriptive curriculum to students.

Our school is comprised of 80%+ students who receive free or reduced lunch, typically an underachieving subgroup. Last year we were a top 25 middle school in the state of Kentucky. The majority of schools scoring higher were from independent school districts, or are magnet schools.

[KeithKSR]

Here is a little bit about the Department of Education. Learn more at ed.gov

Overview
Education is primarily a State and local responsibility in the United States. It is States and communities, as well as public and private organizations of all kinds, that establish schools and colleges, develop curricula, and determine requirements for enrollment and graduation. The structure of education finance in America reflects this predominant State and local role. Of an estimated $1.15 trillion being spent nationwide on education at all levels for school year 2012-2013, a substantial majority will come from State, local, and private sources. This is especially true at the elementary and secondary level, where about 92 percent of the funds will come from non-Federal sources.

That means the Federal contribution to elementary and secondary education is about 8 percent, which includes funds not only from the Department of Education (ED) but also from other Federal agencies, such as the Department of Health and Human Services' Head Start program and the Department of Agriculture's School Lunch program.

Although ED's share of total education funding in the U.S. is relatively small, ED works hard to get a big bang for its taxpayer-provided bucks by targeting its funds where they can do the most good. This targeting reflects the historical development of the Federal role in education as a kind of "emergency response system," a means of filling gaps in State and local support for education when critical national needs arise.


History
The original Department of Education was created in 1867 to collect information on schools and teaching that would help the States establish effective school systems. While the agency's name and location within the Executive Branch have changed over the past 130 years, this early emphasis on getting information on what works in education to teachers and education policymakers continues down to the present day.

The passage of the Second Morrill Act in 1890 gave the then-named Office of Education responsibility for administering support for the original system of land-grant colleges and universities. Vocational education became the next major area of Federal aid to schools, with the 1917 Smith-Hughes Act and the 1946 George-Barden Act focusing on agricultural, industrial, and home economics training for high school students.

World War II led to a significant expansion of Federal support for education. The Lanham Act in 1941 and the Impact Aid laws of 1950 eased the burden on communities affected by the presence of military and other Federal installations by making payments to school districts. And in 1944, the "GI Bill" authorized postsecondary education assistance that would ultimately send nearly 8 million World War II veterans to college.

The Cold War stimulated the first example of comprehensive Federal education legislation, when in 1958 Congress passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik. To help ensure that highly trained individuals would be available to help America compete with the Soviet Union in scientific and technical fields, the NDEA included support for loans to college students, the improvement of science, mathematics, and foreign language instruction in elementary and secondary schools, graduate fellowships, foreign language and area studies, and vocational-technical training.

The anti-poverty and civil rights laws of the 1960s and 1970s brought about a dramatic emergence of the Department's equal access mission. The passage of laws such as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 which prohibited discrimination based on race, sex, and disability, respectively made civil rights enforcement a fundamental and long-lasting focus of the Department of Education. In 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act launched a comprehensive set of programs, including the Title I program of Federal aid to disadvantaged children to address the problems of poor urban and rural areas. And in that same year, the Higher Education Act authorized assistance for postsecondary education, including financial aid programs for needy college students.

In 1980, Congress established the Department of Education as a Cabinet level agency. Today, ED operates programs that touch on every area and level of education. The Department's elementary and secondary programs annually serve nearly 18,200 school districts and over 50 million students attending roughly 98,000 public schools and 32,000 private schools. Department programs also provide grant, loan, and work-study assistance to more than 12 million postsecondary students.


Mission
Despite the growth of the Federal role in education, the Department never strayed far from what would become its official mission: to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.

The Department carries out its mission in two major ways. First, the Secretary and the Department play a leadership role in the ongoing national dialogue over how to improve the results of our education system for all students. This involves such activities as raising national and community awareness of the education challenges confronting the Nation, disseminating the latest discoveries on what works in teaching and learning, and helping communities work out solutions to difficult educational issues.

Second, the Department pursues its twin goals of access and excellence through the administration of programs that cover every area of education and range from preschool education through postdoctoral research. For more information on the Department's programs see the President's FY 2017 Budget Request for Education.


Staffing
One final note: while ED's programs and responsibilities have grown substantially over the years, the Department itself has not. In fact, the Department has the smallest staff of the 15 Cabinet agencies, even though its discretionary budget alone is the third largest, behind only the Department of Defense and the Department of Health and Human Services. In addition, the Department provides over $150 billion in new and consolidated loans annually.

I read an article recently where the US has lost ground in education over the last eight years.

[KeithKSR]

Not sure what you're getting at there History, but your post does in fact prove my point very well.

Note that the site points out that it is now the THIRD largest budget behind defense and health care. Also note the timeline, that it was promoted to a full cabinet department in 1980, and that it now spends $150 billion in loans and per Wiki their regular budget is $70 billion. I don't know how the loans count in, but if they're just behind defense and medicine they have a big big budget.

Now let's look at how all that money (not counting obviously the huge increases in state and local budgets) spent since 1980 has helped:



As we can see, since the rough establishment of federalized education spending has skyrocketed as the actual results have changed little.

Now let's look just at federal spending as a percentage change over time versus improvement in scores:



As the graph shows, Reagan was no fan of the DoE so spending went up little, but after him it went up very fast and under Obama has skyrocketed even more.

Yet again, the results of all that spending has been basically zilch in terms of actual improvement in ability to read, write, or do math. The fundamentals are not the target of all that money. What has gone up is the number of bureaucrats and the amount spent on facilities and non-core educational initiatives.

The obvious conclusion is that the focus on spending huge sums at the federal level for education, education testing and everything else has netted no real gains in the actual quality of that education.

There may be other factors, for example dropout rates have been declining during this period, but that rate has been pretty linear over a long period and doesn't tie well to all the spending. It may help, but not much.

And in the end the unavoidable fact is this: MANY industrial countries spend less on education than the US and have better results in core competency such as math, science, reading. When we're spending that much more and getting less, it's time to examine the very core assumptions of what we are doing.

As a nation built on free markets, vaulting us from afterthought backwater to the most powerful economy the world has known, why would we reject any use of free market principles in our education system on the principle that they are in some way just inherently evil? It's nonsense.

Few of the funds spent actually go to the schools. The big winners are the companies like Pearson.