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Notes -
What do you think will happen with regards to the department of education in the US depending on the results of the election?
For my part it seems like the left would just keep watering it down, more of the same etc. There doesn't seem to be any acknowledgment of issues over there.
I’m also not optimistic that the right will do much either though, republicans have tended to be very Ham fisted in the past with this sort of reform.
Anyone have interesting or different perspectives here?
Can someone steelman the value of the Department of Education?
What if we literally just removed it? I'm a little confused why the federal government is involved at all. And, if they are involved, then surely they deserve to be disbanded for the horrible failures in places like Chicago and Baltimore.
I'm not sure I can steelman it but my sister is a fairly high-level employee there (GS 13 or 14--I should probably know). She works specifically with the adult education department (which is never mentioned nor considered when people complain about DoE, IMO) and doesn't have a ton to say about K-12. Everything that follows is my understanding of what she's told me, not heavily researched data.
She points out that most of what the DoE does, I think she said 1/3-1/2 of the budget(?) is managing FAFSA. Most of the K-12 stuff is state level with recommendations from DoE with few hard requirements. Another major part of what they do is fund research programs that either focus on specific groups and methodologies, or collect data for analysis. She's pretty adamant that what people think they hate about the DoE is not really what the DoE does. She also claims that were the DoE disbanded, half of the people would go to the Dept. of Labor (where DoE originated from) and others would go to places like Dept. of Health and Human Services. That removing the DoE wouldn't really do anything except push bureaucrats around.
I mused out loud that maybe it wouldn't be the end of the world if it were disbanded and it nearly destroyed our relationship. She complains bitterly about being passed over for promotions and the ineptitude of her co-workers. She seems bitter and resentful, so as her brother I wonder if there isn't a better job out there for her to be doing. Her position is that it's an easy job she almost literally phones in (she's on the phone constantly with researchers and other DoE people) and it allows her to donate half her money to charities (not much of an exaggeration) and time for volunteering. She's deeply motivated to help the less-fortunate, but also seems like the exact type of bureaucratic cat lady people are complaining about.
To me, it seems to me that Dept's of Ed belong to state level bureaucracies. It makes sense to keep it federated and the states in light competition with each other. However, I also see some value in the FAFSA. The government providing some funds and low interest loans to students who may want to go to universities anywhere in the US seems fine to me. It's at least using taxes to put some money back into some peoples' hands. But that's fairly weak support as I'm not certain university degrees aren't overvalued in the first place nor can I attest to any fraud waste or abuse inherent in the system. (There are DoE programs for jobs programs and The adult education angle is interesting to me because we really do have a problem with under-educated adults in the US, either those who failed out of crummy schools, the chronically unmotivated or those who arrived here without the ability to read or speak English, etc. But I'm still not sure why this shouldn't be a state or even municipal level organization.)
It's a strange superposition: I'm not inclined to save it but I also doubt that it's the pernicious institution others are convinced of. It definitely looks like a make-work program when I hear about the morons my sister has to deal with on the daily, but it also doesn't seem like it's nearly as powerful as the people who hate it claim. I'm mostly indifferent and probably bend a little toward keeping it for my own peace of mind and QoL.
I don't hate the federal government as much as most people here do, and I think we could live without the DoE. To the degree they do anything useful, it's what your sister described: managing funds, financial aid, etc. That doesn't require an entire department of the government.
GS 13-14 isn't particularly "high level," btw. It's relatively late career (lots of people retire as a 13 or 14), but it's not someone with significant decision-makiing or policy-shaping authority. That starts at 15 and the real high level people are those who make it to the Senior Executive Services.
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