Written by Michael Thervil
It’s one thing for a private business to fail, but it’s another thing for an entire department within the federal government of the United States to be a failure. This position held by many becomes especially true when the U.S. federal government has access to more resources than any state or privatized educational institution has by a long shot. In short, what the federal government has that a private or state-run Department of Education doesn’t have, is the ability to simply print money. Although it’s not that black and white, it is to a degree. When the Pentagon can’t account for roughly 40% of it’s $3.5 trillion in “assets” and nobody hardly batted an eye and no heads rolled, it would lead many people around the world to think that if anyone's educational system would be the best funded, it would be the U.S. educational system.
But don’t take our word for it, let’s take a look at the numbers. When it comes to education on the world stage according to the Pew Research Center:
“U.S. students ranked 28th out of 37 OECD member countries in math.”
“In science, the U.S. ranked 12th out of 37 OECD countries.”
Giving credence to the finds of the Pew Research Center, the National Center for Community Strategies revealed that:
“America now ranks 33rd out of the 44 advanced economies when it comes to the percentage of young people attaining a post-high school degree. We also now rank middling in science and math among OECD countries.”
“In preschool education, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development just ranked America 35th out of 37 major economies when it comes to investing in early childhood education as a percent of GDP. Today, barely half of three- and four-year olds are enrolled in early childhood education. In Germany, France, and the UK, for example, that number is more than 90%.”
With the U.S. Department of Education spending roughly $80 billion annually on education, that is nothing but a drop in the bucket when compared to China, a direct competitor to the United States who spends roughly $906 billion on education. Another federal department President elect Donald Trump should get rid of is the Department of Health and Human Services and the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) because of their failed pre-kindergarten program HeadStart, which was put in place to help the poor families of America. The truth is the HeadStart program is more of a free-for-all social welfare program that focuses more on “feelings” than results; and whatever positive effect the HeadStart program may have initially had, becomes null and void by the time the child enters the 2nd grade. What we mean by this is that you can’t academically tell the difference between a child that attended a HeadStart program from a child who didn’t when they have reached the 2nd grade.
It’s easy to see that when tax dollars are being used to fund a failed program like HeadStart in conjunction with academic institutions that continuously fail to meet the metrics set by the U.S. Federal government; in combination with the exponential cost of higher education in the United States which can’t be justified given what they produce. From the perspective of President elect Donald Trump, the only responsible thing to do is to completely shut down the Federal Department of education on the federal level.
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