LOTS OF INPUTS, NOT MUCH OUTPUT?

Our President hopes to dismantle the federal Department of Education, otherwise known as the evil empire Ronald Reagan couldn't terminate.  There's a reduction in force already under way, and the forces being reduced understandably don't like it.

Unions representing Department of Education workers and teachers quickly responded to the cuts on Tuesday, expressing concern for the workforce and the impacts on tens of millions of students served by the agency.

“What is clear from the past weeks of mass firings, chaos, and unchecked unprofessionalism is that this regime has no respect for the thousands of workers who have dedicated their careers to serve their fellow Americans,” Sheria Smith, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, said in a statement. “It is also clear that there is a rampant disinformation campaign to mislead Americans about the actual services, resources, grants, and programs that the U.S. Department of Education provides to all Americans.”

Another major teachers’ union slammed Trump and Elon Musk for their reshaping of the federal government that led to Tuesday’s cuts. “The real victims will be our most vulnerable students,” Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, said in a statement.

Consider the source: that's the same National Education Association that kept the common schools online and prolonged the corona tyranny.  The vulnerable students are the association's victims, and the department's.  "More education dollars are funding more bureaucrats, who, by and large, are not improving student outcomes."

Let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

If an investment yields stagnant or negative returns despite increased funding, the rational thing to do is back off. This logic rarely applies in government, but we're in a unique moment. The U.S. Department of Education—which has long exemplified the sunk-cost fallacy with past investments motivating continued spending—faces possible closure as President Donald Trump's administration pushes to devolve education back to the states.

First, let's be clear: The department traditionally funds only 8 percent to 10 percent of K-12 education, and new Secretary of Education Linda McMahon seems rightly concerned that not enough of that money goes toward actual instruction. The Trump administration first moved to cut half of the department's bureaucratic jobs and may now attempt to eliminate it altogether. Officials also pledge to maintain the "services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely" while key funding is brought "closer to states, localities, and more importantly, students."

Doing more with less may be possible.

Ms Smith, predictably, doesn't evaluate it that way.  "Families who have students with special needs, what they've just done today is fire hundreds of the employees that would be enforcing [their] rights."

Because the expansion of special education has turned out so well, hasn't it?

An investor would notice that since its 1979 establishment, the Education Department's budget has ballooned from $14 billion to around $100 billion. That's more than its spending from 1980 to 1985. Similar increases have occurred at the state and local levels, which provide over 90 percent of K-12 funding. In 1980, total per-pupil spending (from local, state, and federal sources) was around $9,000 in today's dollars. Today that figure is $17,277, with $2,400 coming from federal funding.

The biggest question, of course, is what the investment is delivering. The department was originally created to raise educational standards, promote equity, and improve national competitiveness. After all that time and money, have we seen much progress? Not really.

International rankings show a mediocre performance compared to other countries that spend much less than we do per student. Fairly recent data from the Programme for International Student Assessment placed the United States at 16th in science, ninth in reading, and 34th in mathematics—trailing nations that spend less but operate with decentralized, market-driven education systems. This is a sharp decline compared to the 1970s, when America was among the top performers.

At home, things aren't any better. The Education Department's defenders argue that federal involvement is necessary to close educational gaps, but data suggest otherwise. Functional illiteracy rates, for example, have not changed much since 1979 and remain as high as 20 percent by some measures. Since the late 1970s, eighth grade reading and math scores have remained virtually unchanged, showing no meaningful progress. High school seniors' math scores have barely improved. Gains have been made in third grade math, but these disappear by middle school.

Worse, lower-performing students have suffered the most. In 2024, 40 percent of fourth graders and 33 percent of eighth graders scored below the National Center for Education Statistics' basic reading level—an alarming failure for a system meant to ensure foundational literacy. The department hasn't just failed to close gaps; it's seen them widen.

In fact, to borrow what sounds like a shibboleth, low-income and minority students hardest hit, all the happy talk about common standards notwithstanding.