What Current Affairs Reveal About Education

It’s as if current events are working together to reform education, or, at the very least, to make it evident to all Americans why reform needs to happen. Between the current government shutdown and the looming debt ceiling, it’s becoming more evident every day that the safest place for education is as far away from the federal government as possible. 

One week ago, Congress failed to reach agreement on the latest funding crisis, and the federal government shut down. When numbers were released on furloughs, we had concrete evidence on just how wasteful the Department of Education is. Education is mostly in the bailiwick of state and local governments (as it should be), leaving 94% of the Department of Education officials declared “non-essential.” In other words, almost every single federal Department of Education employee is unnecessary to educate our children. 

10 days from now, on October 17th, America will be hitting the fiscal wall. On that day, the United States government will once again need to authorize more borrowing in order to pay our bills. Heaven forbid we should just cut back instead. There are those who will tell you that we can’t cut back, and that all of this spending is for the children. Isn’t it always? The story goes that, if the government isn’t able to borrow, education spending (among other things) would have to stop. Do they mean that the federal government would be pushed out of education? That sounds like a fantastic idea! 

What we are learning from the current state of American affairs is that the federal government is unable to administrate education effectively. It has been revealed to be all but useless.  It’s time to put education completely in the hands of local educators, legislators and parents and stop giving money and power to DC bureaucrats.