The U.S. Federal Government Should Abolish the Department of Education

Seemingly since the beginning of time, we have been set on a goal: Making the world a better place for future generations. Although we have improved in many respects, and we continue to grow, one thing that hasn"t been getting better for years is the education we are giving our children. The very foundation of which this generation is growing on is cracked. I would like now to present some evidence and key points for my case. First, I shall bring up the issue of Inherency, or the facts in the status quo, the Harms in the status quo, and the plan to fix the harms, and then the advantage. First let's look at inherency. INHERENCY: or what"s going on in the status quo. 1.)U.S scores haven"t gotten any better Megan Coleman, December 2013 (Megan grew up in Prairie Village, Kan. She is a graduate of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.) http://www.cnycentral.com... "A global education survey released Tuesday shows when it comes to math, reading and science, teens in the U.S. rank 36th in the world. Students in Shanghai are rated the best. The results come from an assessment done last year. More than half a million students from 65 countries took a two hour test as part of the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA. Students in East Asian countries performed the strongest with students in the Chinese city of Shanghai doing the best. Singapore came in second in math, followed by Hong Kong. The global exam, which was given to 15-year-olds around the world, is considered the worldwide benchmark for education ranking by country. The test measures standards in subjects like math, science and reading across Europe, North and South America, Australia, Asia and parts of the Middle East. This year, Tunisia in Africa also participated. U.S. performance was extremely low, doing average in reading and science and well below average in math. We failed to reach the top 20 in any of the subjects tested. America fell notably below the United Kingdom and well behind most of our Asian counterparts. Education Secretary Arne Duncan calls America's performance education stagnation. "The brutal truth...that urgent reality...must serve as a wake up call against educational complacency and low expectations," Duncan said. "The problem is not that our 15-year-olds are performing worse today than before...the problem, instead, is that they are simply not making progress. Yet, students in many other nations...are advancing, instead of standing still." Basically, our students are at a stand still when it comes to educational development. While other countries are progressing, we are stuck in the rut of a failed education system. 2.) Unconstitutionality Jeffrey Duncan 2011 Jeffrey D. Duncan is an American politician who has been the United States Representative for South Carolina's 3rd congressional district since 2011. http://heritageaction.com... "The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution states that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Those who claim the Department of Education is Constitutional say that it promotes the general welfare of the United States. However, this "General Welfare" phrase appears in the preamble of the Constitution and does not grant or prohibit power to Congress. The preamble simply describes the Constitution and what the document itself was designed to do, and is not actually a binding decree of the Constitution. The Department of Education was founded using the preamble as the basis for its Constitutionality, but due to what"s stated above, it is clear that it is not in fact constitutional." Should we really be endorsing and supporting the continuous destruction of our founding fathers vision for our future? HARMSA 1.) Department of Education is Irresponsible Ian Hatchett August 14, 2014 Ian Hatchett graduated from the Hillsdale College of Michigan and has been writing for breitbart.com for many years .http://www.breitbart.com... "Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) responded to allegations that he flip-flopped on Common Core, and described the federal government"s handling of Common Core as a "hijacking" of what was supposed to be a "bottom-up approach" on Wednesday"s "Laura Ingraham Show." Jindal said that he implemented standards in his state believing it would be a "bottom-up approach," but that the federal government then did a "bait and switch the federal government then came in after 2010, and said for example, "if you want Race to the Top dollars you have to do Common Core standards, if you want No Child Left Behind waivers, you have to use Common Core standards."" He described these actions as "hijacking," and "a bribe, blackmail, extortion." Jindal also accused education officials in his state of giving "no-bid contracts," under the law and selecting more expensive tests. He additionally railed against the Common Core standards, saying they were "absolutely about dictating what happens in those classrooms." And "the federal government has no role in setting local curriculum and making those decisions." He described Common Core math as making "absolutely no sense." "A majority of teachers in Louisiana [are] saying they"re not ready for this, they don"t want this," he also reported." Basically, The Department of Education is blackmailing the states into adopting the Federal standards for Education by refusing to offer Federal funds to States that do not adopt the Common Core standards and give over all control of their curriculum to the Federal Government. 2.)1.4 Trillion Dollars Wasted Andrew J. Coulson 2007 Andrew J. Coulson is the director of Cato"s Center for Educational Freedom. Previously, he was senior fellow in Education Policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. He serves on the Advisory Council of the E.G. West Centre for Market Solutions in Education at the University of Newcastle, UK, and has contributed to books published by the Fraser Institute and the Hoover Institution. National Center for Education Statistics. Digest of Education Statistics 2007, Table 162 National Assessment of Educational Progress Long Term Trend Reports http://www2.ed.gov... "According to the Department of Education Budget History, the Department of Education has spent $1,398,512,287,000 (One trillion, three hundred ninety-eight billion, five hundred twelve million, two hundred eighty-seven thousand) or roughly 1.4 trillion dollars, over its history. Spending by the Department of Education has skyrocketed with absolutely no effect on test scores. While spending at the federal level has increased at a frightening rate, "student test scores in math, reading and science have remained flat or declined over the past four decades." By every measure, it's been a horrific waste of money, which the United States simply can't tolerate in its current fiscal situation." Now that we have established a firm understanding of the detrimental situation of our status quo, we would like to present to you our systematic plan to fix the harms and ultimately improve the education we are giving our children. PLAN Mandates: 1.)Abolish the United States Department of Education Over a period of one year we will slowly but effectively dissolve all administrative functions and dismiss all employees, which would ultimately come to the conclusion of having no more Department of Education. 2.)Federal loans shall be privatized, and the responsibility of Pell Grants shall be given to the Administration for Children and Families. All other responsibilities of the Department will return to the states. No funding needed. Agency and Enforcement will come from the executive office of the federal government. Affirmative plan takes place immediately after an Affirmative ballot and we reserve the right to clarify our plan as needed. And now let"s move on to our advantage, or how we solve our harms. ADVANTAGE Decentralize Education Peter Smagorinsky, Distinguished Research Professor of English Education at The University of Georgia. http://www.washingtonpost.com... I think that the students who entered school in 2000 and are graduating in 2012 will be the worst-educated cohort in the history of the United States, through no fault of their own, because they will have experienced all of their schooling under these ruinous programs that have reduced all learning to what can be measured on multiple choice tests. Imagine these young people now entering situations where they don"t get three or four reductive choices for each problem they encounter. Their education has studiously avoided complexity, thoughtfulness, reflection, engagement, stimulation, personal commitment, and everything else that makes an education worth having. The source of the poverty of their education will not be their teachers, who must teach this regime or face punishment; and it will not be themselves. Rather, the problem emerges from the policies created by those who mistaken test scores for learning and have turned tests into a vengeful machine for punishing teachers whose instruction lacks a commitment to multiple-choice tests as the epitome of a learning experience. Instead of having a highly centralized administration powered by money contributed by textbook publishers and other entrepreneurs cashing in on the lucrative enterprise of educational materials production, I would have a highly distributed approach in which most decision-making is local and relies on teachers.