Education

Pop quiz:
Where in the Constitution is the Department of Education created or justified?
A)   Bill of Rights
B)   Article III - The Judicial Branch
C)   Preamble
D)   Article 1, Section 8 - The Powers of Congress
E)   None of the Above

I'll just wait right here while you Google it.



The answer is of course, E.  President Jimmy Carter created the department by elevating the obscure and powerless Office of Education to the current Cabinet level it now enjoys.  The official functions of the department are to "establish policy for, administer and coordinate most federal assistance to education, collect data on US schools, and to enforce federal educational laws regarding privacy and civil rights."

Where do I begin?  Administering policy for education assistance?  Collecting data on US schools?  Enforcing educational laws?

I think we can all agree that education is on the decline.  What might end that agreement is why.  Education spending is up more than 100% in the last 10 years while international rankings list us between 22nd and 33rd in the world in student performance.

(psst)... How do you spell government failure, Bro?

So despite throwing money at the problem, what we end up with is pathetic results.  Some say we don't spend enough, but I disagree and you should too for the following reasons;
1)  We cannot afford it.  Our nation is in a severe debt crisis right now and spending money we don't have only fuels the fire.
2)  Market-based competition breeds the best results.  Schools with a history of failure are allowed to continue to push under-performing students though apathetic school districts, resulting in rampant cheating, fraud, and wasted opportunities for the students.
3)  It is unconstitutional!  No where in Article 1, Section 8 is the Federal government granted the power to educate the citizens of this country.  That was omitted for good reason.  Local governments are much more responsible to their constituents and education works best with parental involvement. 

Back to the Department of Education, none of their official functions do anything to alleviate poor student performance, or make efficient use of scare tax dollars.  From what I can tell, that department only exists to pay bureaucrats and restrict competition.  Sorry, but I will take performance and freedom any day of government overreach and inefficiency.  And I managed to consider all this, despite my years of public education.  Maybe there is hope after all.