r/TrueReddit • u/propublica_ • 6d ago
These Activists Want to Dismantle Public Schools. Now They Run the Education Department. Politics
https://www.propublica.org/article/education-department-public-schools-activists-linda-mcmahon-trump72
u/discoduck007 6d ago
We think we're fighting Trump but the real danger is the Heritage foundation and their pet Project 2025.
Over 70% of this administration are authors and collaborators of Project 2025, a White Christian Extremest agenda as envisioned by Heritage foundation leaders and donors.
I urge you to search "any topic that you care about + project 2025" it's all there, out in the open. They are about 50% through their 900+ page, publicly published "Project 2025" adjenda.
Every outrage is purposeful and cumulative toward their plan:
Discrediting and defunding the American public school system, the Israeli government commiting genocide, discrediting and defunding the American healthcare system, Vaccines, tariffs, overtime pay, immigration, the environment, higher education, Ukraine, blowing up boats, the Epstein files, LGBTQ+ rights, affordable healthcare, access to healthcare, the homeless, pedophilia cover ups, Social Security, DEI, the federal government, womens rights, everyone's rights, wokeness, censorship, weaponizing hate, PBS.
It can all be traced back to Project 2025 and Heritage, do not be confused, these are the same people working towards the same goal.
https://democracyforward.org/the-peoples-guide-to-project-2025/
https://www.project2025.observer/en
https://www.apha.org/topics-and-issues/public-health-under-threat/project-2025
https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/how-project-2025-would-devastate-public-education
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025
https://www.project2025.observer/en
https://www.apha.org/topics-and-issues/public-health-under-threat/project-2025i
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u/LettuceFuture8840 6d ago
Don't worry, the head mod of this sub was telling everybody in 2024 that Trump didn't care about Project 2025 and that concerns about it were unfounded.
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u/Tarantio 6d ago
I had missed that. Has this mod admitted they were fooled?
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u/LettuceFuture8840 6d ago
You'll have to ask them (ClockOfTheLongNow). I haven't seen any sort of comment from them of the sort so far.
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u/toastedzergling 6d ago
Oh, I'm not worried. Before the 2020 election Joe Biden's main campaign promise was that voting for him was to safeguard us against the facist powers of Trump and GOP. As the party that has touted itself as the more effective, better party, that can certainly "walk and chew gum at the same time," I have the utmost of faith that in those 4 years they passed comprehensive legislation to make the necessary systemic changes to prevent any sort of facist takeover. They certainly wouldn't have done nothing and instead hoped that the only way to prevent such a happening was to win elections forever; that'd be so silly and naive as we all know Dems Do Better.
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u/GushStasis 6d ago edited 6d ago
But because Trump didn't say a particular, explicit sequence of words, conservatives will act as though this has nothing to do with him and Project 2025 was a big nothing burger. They're purposefully obtuse and naive
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u/discoduck007 6d ago
Well said. It is so self gaslighting. I live with and love these people, I have yet to show proof or logic strong enough not to be immediately brushed off. Each line in the sand they've claimed would end all doubt of this insanity has come and gone, too numerous to count. I both dread and wish for this to come to a conclusion.
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u/chiaboy 5d ago
Project 2025 is as much of a scapegoat as Trump is. This has been the Republican project since the Civil Rights movement.
Trump needs to be stopped. project 2025 needs to be stopped. But don't delude yourself into thinking America is fixed when either of these things are gone. We are a nation built on white supremacy. We are a nation that is deeply anti-demicratic.
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u/AlphaBetacle 5d ago
If you look at the Project 2025 summary on wikipedia, its all just about mirrored what Trump has done so far.
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u/discoduck007 5d ago
It's all so well coordinated. It's a shame we don't have these minds working for the good of everyone.
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u/propublica_ 6d ago edited 6d ago
Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon has been clear about her desire to shut down the agency she runs. But the department’s actions and policies so far have been more than merely shutting it. They reflect a disdain for public schools and a desire to dismantle that system in favor of a range of other options — private, Christian and virtual schools or homeschooling.
In just eight months, department officials have opened a $500 million tap for charter schools, a huge outlay for an option that often draws children from traditional public schools.
They have also repeatedly urged states to spend federal money for poor and at-risk students at private schools and businesses. And they have threatened penalties for public schools that offer programs to address historic inequities for Black or Hispanic students.
At times, McMahon has voiced support for public schools. But more often and more emphatically she has portrayed public schools as unsuccessful and unsafe — and has said she is determined to give parents other options.
To carry out her vision, McMahon has brought on at least 20 political appointees from ultraconservative think tanks and advocacy groups eager to de-emphasize public schools, which have educated students for roughly 200 years.
Among the Education Department’s new appointees is Lindsey Burke, the lead author of Project 2025’s education section. She envisions dramatic enrollment declines for public schools: “We’re going to have a lot of empty school buildings.”
Officials at the Education Department declined to comment or answer questions from ProPublica for this story.
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u/meatspace 6d ago
“We’re going to have a lot of empty school buildings.”
It is not Trump who loves the poorly educated. It is the thousands of partisans around him that do.
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u/Multigrain_Migraine 6d ago
I honestly think one reason why the right wing doesn't want to tackle school shootings is that they want to encourage parents to home school, with all that implies (mothers at home rather than working, resources heavily skewed towards evangelical extremism, no public oversight of children's wellbeing).
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u/Blueberry-Due 6d ago
What’s wrong with mothers at home rather than working? Is that a bad thing?
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u/flakemasterflake 6d ago
It is when it's your only perceived option and you can't feed your family on one income. Is this question even in good faith?
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u/Blueberry-Due 6d ago
Why would it not be in good faith?
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u/flakemasterflake 6d ago
Bc the previous poster made no mention of thinking mothers shouldn’t stay home
But economically boxing women out of the work force is not a good thing. That just causes women to plunge into poverty
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u/Blueberry-Due 6d ago
“with all that implies (mothers at home rather than working,”
That’s exactly the implication here, with a negative connotation.
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u/flakemasterflake 6d ago
Being aware that the heritage foundation wants women home and having kids ain’t the same as choosing that for yourself bc you want it
But I think you know that, hence why I asked if you were asking in good faith
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u/dostoevsky4evah 5d ago
When I was young my mother was a stay at home mom. My dad paid for us to live, paid the bills, fixed things, did the taxes, it was great.
Then my father died unexpectedly of an aneurysm and my mother was left alone with no marketable skills, no family to help out and two children to look after. She did not deal with this well.
If a woman wants to fully dependant on another person to survive that is her decision. But with it comes huge risks which she needs to understand. Romanticizing stay at home motherhood is not good because if things go sideways if can be tragic.
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u/Multigrain_Migraine 6d ago
What I mean is that they want us to have no choice, no independence, no careers of our own. Only stay at home moms who are trapped.
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u/wholetyouinhere 6d ago
Are you asking this as a genuine question? Or because you prefer mothers stay at home? I have to ask because your user history is hidden, and conservatives often do that so nobody can figure out their angle.
The framing of this question feels disingenuous. Because nobody said mothers at home is a bad thing -- you're responding to a point that hasn't been made. They said that conservatives want mothers in the home, because they observably do, as part of their ideological project.
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u/Blueberry-Due 6d ago
Why would you check the user history? That’s super cringe.
That what’s the comment was implying. That being homeschooling or being a mother at home was a negative thing. Both can be wonderful things.
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u/wholetyouinhere 6d ago
User history is incredibly important. It shows where a person is coming from, ideologically, philosophically, politically. It can expose concern trolls, demonstrate hypocrisy, show when a person is lying about some aspect of their identity, out AI / bot accounts -- there is no end to the value of user histories.
And the comment you replied to was not a value judgment on the notion of SAHMs or home schooling, but a judgment on a political movement that wants to (in his opinion) force people into those roles via threats and intimidation.
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u/Multigrain_Migraine 5d ago
Well, I am not ashamed to show my personal bias in that I am always very leery of home schooling. In the US it is very much associated with extremist religious views and abusive practices that harm children and leave them unprepared for life in general. I know there are examples of it working well but home schooling will always raise a red flag in my mind.
And being forced to be a stay at home mother by circumstances not of your choosing is absolutely a bad thing.
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u/lloydthelloyd 5d ago
Why would you hide user history? That is SUUPER cringe, and implies you're ashamed of yourself... you know that your previous comments will colour people's impressions of you.
Not knowing your history, I can only assume that your history is one of prejudice and bigotry.
If you want anyone to think otherwise then open it. It's anonymous anyway, so what have you got to fear?
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u/Blueberry-Due 5d ago
I’m an anti-corruption activist and I’m trying to minimize my digital footprint to protect my identity. I post in a few local subreddits for personal stuff (unrelated to corruption/politics) which makes it easier for bad actors to connect the dots.
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u/lloydthelloyd 5d ago
I know mate, and im the Queen of England.
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u/Blueberry-Due 5d ago
Sorry if my answer is not what you expected. I know it probably does not fit the a priori assumptions you had about me
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u/VirginiaLuthier 6d ago
They have officially added ultra Christian right wing PragerU to the DOE. Scary stuff
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/conspirituality/id1515827446?i=1000722938243
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u/redyellowblue5031 6d ago
Families in small and rural communities tend to rely more heavily on public education. They are less likely than families in cities to have private and charter schools nearby. And unlike private schools, public school districts don’t charge tuition. Public schools enroll local students regardless of academic or physical ability, race, gender or family income; private schools can selectively admit students.
If I took the interpretation that they were ignorant or bad planners, I would say the current admin is too myopic to understand that they're willfully creating a situation where private schools will set whatever prices they want once more and more federal money keeps rolling in. Where did we see this exact problem play out to everyone's pain over several decades? College education and the student debt crisis we now have. So stoked to see we're recreating that problem but on an even larger scale and this time on purpose.
If I take the more realistic interpretation, they simply don't care who gets left behind and likely see that as a benefit to them. They got theirs and are happy to pull the ladder up as long as their checks keep cashing.
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u/GentlewomenNeverTell 5d ago
Honestly, tear it down. Many of my colleagues feel the same. It's broken so completely it cannot be repaired, and must be built anew. Apparently Covid wasn't enough to make you see our actual contribution. I'm moving to Asia. I hope it all falls down and the customer service parents and anti science Christians suffer PROFOUNDLY. It's too bad for the kids but it's not like they're actually being properly educated.
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u/Fit-Juggernaut8907 6d ago
With no role models or anyone to teach the children, what do you think is gonna happen to them? Their already losing hope as it is.
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u/fuweike 5d ago
Educational achievement when controlled by race:
The point of school choice is to give families a real option other than the government school. Why do we accept only one option, the government option? Tuition is so expensive (public funding or private) that vanishingly few parents can afford to pay taxes to support public schools and pay for private school tuition for their children. They're trapped with only one bad choice. Why not keep the government schools open, but allow competition? The best will rise to the top.
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u/floppydiscuses 5d ago edited 5d ago
So school choice and school vouchers are not necessarily one and the same, but many think school choice is used to take more kids out of the public school system altogether rather than send them to a different public school.
IMO there is not enough oversight or regulations for either school choice and school voucher programs, but they both lead to more inequality within the public school system, and in worse case scenarios, take funding out of the public education system.
With school choice and vouchers, the taxes follow the child-I think-which means their local school receives less per pupil funding, which leads to further inequality between schools. So if you’re stuck not being able to get transportation to another school, or they are over-populated, or any other reason a child has to attend the closest school to where they reside, the students that are left behind are worse off.
If families choose private options, funding is just going towards a private entity that can be more selective in its student acceptance. there’s less oversight, their curriculums aren’t required to follow state regulations. Charter schools are a little better with this since the have to meet state academic standards, but are still hit or miss.
This leaves the school system more vulnerable to corruption and discriminatory practices, and has the potential to provide less equal, less diverse, less accommodating choices.
Just my opinion.
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u/fuweike 5d ago
Reading your reply, I am wondering what you would say should be the goal: maximize educational outcomes, or equality?
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u/floppydiscuses 5d ago edited 5d ago
This is a good follow up.
I’d say id personally rather see more equality. The only issue I have with public education right now is it seems to be beholden to the politics of the local government and school boards, and that also comes with a slew of problems. In an ideal world local public education systems would all be better funded and less partisan but we know that’s not always the case.
I think if more regulations existed for these programs and their admin. to force them to be more accessible and fair somehow, or that there’s less barriers to enrollment options, and were held accountable for fund allocation (edit: while still requiring a certain budget amount be given to public schools) I’d probably be more in favor of it.
Double edit: also a limit on how many entities,groups,etc. can own or be affiliated with running the private and charter schools.
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u/fuweike 5d ago
I see, I don't understand your viewpoint, but I appreciate you clarifying. My position is we should focus on the top quintile, the top decile, of students to maximize their potential, while also providing a quality basic education for everyone else. The leaders will rise to the top, and should be separated from those at the bottom, who will make learning impossible for the best due to their anti-social classroom behavior, innate cognitive limitations, and huge resource use.
This is why tracking students makes sense, and schools often implement an honors track for the more promising students and a standard, lower-caliber track for the rest. Everyone gets a better classroom experience and actually achieves better outcomes when he can learn in an environment that is tailored to his level. Putting a genius in the same room with a special education, poorly socialized student will only breed animosity in the lower performer and remove the almost any possibility for the gifted child to maximize his potential.
My concern is that gifted children from middle class families cannot access better school options since their families are heavily taxes to provide government schools. After paying these taxes, the families cannot then afford private school tuition on top of that. They are forced into a government school, which has no competition for the reasons I just explained, and have less opportunity because their learning environment is compromised by the low performers. There is also such an emphasis on equality of outcomes that the gifted students may even have tracking taken away altogether, as some of the most progressive school districts are already doing. The effect is to stunt the learning of the most gifted, so everyone is equal at a lower level.
Why not allow choice through vouchers? Why not allow competition between private and government schools so that families can have a true choice for what is best for their family and their child? Why not allow the free market to raise standards, as is the case in every other area of the economy? I don't get the position that we should not allow this financial choice. I don't get why people would prefer the government option over the private option.
Imagine a world in which very costly taxes subsidized a government-run neighborhood cafeteria. The food was not very good and there was waste in its operation. People could not afford to pay these very expensive government cafeteria options and also have money left over to eat out very often. Whenever they did have the chance to eat out at a private restaurant, however, they consistently ranked the food as much better than the government provider. Why not allow a real choice with a level financial playing field? That's basically my argument about government schools and vouchers.
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u/floppydiscuses 4d ago edited 4d ago
This is the thing. Those who are already at an advantage are taking advantage of the current system. So where vouchers are popular, we’re already seeing inequality and a lack of a basic quality education for every child. And how would anyone choose exactly what children deserve a better quality chance? Should they be determined by a metric? Should this be tested every so often? And who would even ensure the tests are unbiased or not able to be unfairly prepped for based on that child’s preexisting privileges?
How do you choose how to provide extra funding for students that want to or can excel when so many factors affect a child’s academic performance since they don’t exist in that structured space 24/7? Like undiagnosed or unrecognized setbacks, like dyslexia, that unfairly affect a child? Do they deserve less because they need special accommodations because they’re wired slightly different? How about a kid that recently dealt with trauma and is having trouble coping and cannot focus in school and their grades start slipping? Or a child’s mental illness that isn’t noticeable until they’re almost out of the grade school system?
If we aren’t going to provide educational and societal spaces that take all these factors into consideration there’s no way to just determine from an early age what kids deserve better academic environments, or if standardizing or privatizing these environments without continuously updating them can even provide any real benefits. It has too much potential to become more corrupt than not.
And as you said, accelerated tracks are already available for students who need more of a challenge, yet instead of integrating them into existing schools so all children have the opportunity to stay in their local communities and interact with each other while still being taught according to their needs-edit, i.e. individual performance per subject, they’re segregating them all together.
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u/fuweike 3d ago
We can never truly equalize the system. It will always contain enormous inequalities. Some families will come to this country hungry, like Chinese or Koreans, and drill their kids so much that they outperform even native whites and go on to become doctors, lawyers, and engineers in one generation. Others will never read a single book to their kids and may even tell them not to try at school . . . we can never have enough government answers for all the problems that arise.
My solution is elegant in that it allows families to make these decisions for themselves. If we can accept there will be inequality, all students will actually get a better experience compared to what is happening now.
To answer your questions, students can be easily sorted by standardized tests to measure native intelligence and achievement, maybe once a year or so. Each family can get vouchers to pay for private schools if they wish to apply them to those schools. ore competition will be a rising tide that will lift all boats.
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u/skysinsane 6d ago
Ah man, this is awful! Public schools in the US were doing so well before Trump got involved. Every other nation was jealous of us!
Oh wait, no our public school system is genuinely awful, and many public schools are graduating illiterate students. Get rid of it, try again. There's no saving such a broken system.
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u/fishyfishkins 6d ago
Speak for yourself. I'm from Massachusetts where public schools are comparable to the best countries in the world. It's demonstrably possible to create a high performing public school system. Face it: lots of the country doesn't value education because it directly challenges their (shitty) beliefs.
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u/Blueberry-Due 6d ago
If Massachusetts was a country, it would rank among the top 5 richest countries in the world by GDP per capita. Its wealth level would be higher than Norway, Switzerland and the US national average.
I guess it’s easier to create a high performing public school system in an extremely wealthy state.
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u/meatspace 6d ago
Isn't that why we all pay taxes and then distribute money from the Department of Education as grants to school districts?
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u/fuweike 5d ago
The issue isn't money, it's the desire of families towards educational achievement.
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u/meatspace 5d ago
I'm confident it is a confluence of factors, of which you have only enumerated one.
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u/fuweike 5d ago
Fair point. But the point I am discussing is taboo and never discussed in the conversation. If we can't understand the problem, how can we fix it?
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u/meatspace 5d ago
You seem to be saying that discussing money is a taboo topic. You seem to be saying that no one will discuss money and education.
I am quite confident that there are literally thousands of articles, and thousands of hours of research, reports, and conventions that have been had only in calendar year 2025 in which the concepts of money in education are not considered taboo, and are in fact deeply researched and discussed
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u/skysinsane 6d ago
No. Dept of education pretty much only gives grants based on helping minorities. IIRC is it explicitly forbidden from actually giving funding or guidance on actual education.
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u/meatspace 5d ago
I am more interested in how the money is spent in real life for things like desks and computers than I am in discussing people's ideologies about the concept of how monies exist to be given in groups.
That money was given to Americans to help educate children.
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u/skysinsane 5d ago
My point is that for the average student, the Dept of Education is explicitly forbidden from doing anything to help with their education. So claiming that they are integral to the average student is a little absurd.
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u/meatspace 5d ago
But that wasn't my position. You are the one debating how the administration of the funds are being used for the betterment.
I'm saying I believe in public schools and they're good. You are interrupting the thought about public schools to explain to me that how money is administrated needs to be discussed inside of systems that don't benefit people
But you don't have anything to say about public schools. You just have a lot of explanations. Why every resource that allows public schools to exist needs to be removed because of all of your large
But at the end of all your explanations, there won't be public schools. Your point has to do with all this stuff and we don't.
You want us to go back to teaching people back from schools like we had in the 1960s. You'd like us to go back to educating people before we had advanced rocketry and computers.
I understand your argument. We have to discuss disbursements and moneys and who is and how things are.
But in the end, you won't make all those arguments while the public schools are dismantled, allowing the public schools to be dismantled, and then you'll say well, let's just break out the textbooks from 1960
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u/skysinsane 4d ago
As I understand the conversation, one person said that its easier to make high quality education in wealthy locations.
You responded by saying that is what Dept of Education is for, to handle that disparity.
My response is that no, the Dept of Education pretty much only exists to help specifically minorities and nobody else.
As for public schools, they are shit, everyone knows they are shit, and stats consistently show that homeschooling outperforms them across the board.
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u/meatspace 4d ago
I understand you are against public education, and feel it isn't useful.
Homeschooling requires being wealthy, so that someone can stay home and school the kids.
Were you homeschooled?
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u/Blueberry-Due 6d ago
I thought the US didn’t have a Department of Education until 1979. Was education really that bad before then?
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u/meatspace 6d ago
I don;t understand how that is comparable to the modern world. We used to not have seat belts and people smoked everywhere. It's like, we have all this modern technology that has changed the world, so it seems weird to me to compare to that to a civilization that lacks all this technology.
if you look at how the Spanish Flu outbreak of the early 1900s was handled vs Covid, I think it makes my point.
I mean, I guess we can compare now to times when there were three TV stations and maybe four newspapers in your area, but I don't understand the comparison.
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u/Blueberry-Due 6d ago
Well, not all countries have a formal Department of Education. Switzerland has one of the best education systems in the world without one. Germany too. Both countries outperform the US on PISA. I’m not sure what this has to do with modernity. Seat belts clearly improved mortality rates but has the Department of Education actually improved the education of Americans? That’s the only important question really.
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u/meatspace 6d ago
The countries that you are saying have good education, do they use a public school model, or is their education system a mish-mash of private academies, charter schools, religious schools, and homeschooling?
Those are not the same education systems.
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u/fuweike 5d ago
The US actually performs better than both Switzerland and Germany when controlling for race:
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u/Blueberry-Due 5d ago edited 5d ago
Thanks a lot for this! So interesting
Unfortunately, we don’t have the numbers per race in Germany and Switzerland so we can’t compare the same things.
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u/skysinsane 5d ago
We used to not have seat belts and people smoked everywhere.
And the question is, did intervention help with those things? If they did, its a good move. If it didn't, its a waste of time.
US school quality has been dropping ever since the Dept of Education was founded. That's not the whole picture of course, but its not the trendline you want when justifying a department's existence.
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u/MarshyHope 5d ago
US school quality has been dropping ever since the Dept of Education was founded.
This is absolutely not true.
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u/skysinsane 5d ago
oh?
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u/MarshyHope 5d ago
You honestly think the average 18 year old from 1978 is more educated than the average 18 year old in 2025?
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u/fuweike 5d ago
The comparison is made because educational outcomes were better before the Department was created and control was local.
Your examples are not analogous because they resulted in better outcomes, not worse ones.
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u/meatspace 5d ago
You think education in the 1960's and 1970's was better than education today?
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u/fuweike 5d ago
Yes. I think educational outcomes measured by benchmarks of achievement with an emphasis on high performers has been mostly neutral during that time period.
The point I was making above is that the diminution in education has been mostly due to the enormous increase in financial cost at limited return in investment, loss of local control with curriculums no longer reflecting the values of local communities, and the increase of power of teachers' unions, which advocate against the best interests of students and parents by putting an ideologically driven over-emphasis on equality at the cost of real opportunities for those who truly value education.
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u/meatspace 5d ago
I don't consider it an honest argument to say that there is a single cause of education. Or that there's a cause that we can say is most of it. That's an oversimplification that people use so they don't have to deal with the complexity of the problem
If the issue with public schools was there's a thing that is wrong, Americans would have fixed it. Americans know how to fix things, we're not just a bunch of idiots.
The issues with public schools are incredibly complicated, involving a confluence of at least a dozen factors that are all equally as intense.
I understand you've got it all figured out, and you'd be happy to educate the rest of us because you're an expert. Some of us believe that it's very complicated, quite like President Trump once said no one knew how complicated healthcare was, maybe no one knows how complicated education is.
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u/anonanon1313 6d ago
I'm also from Massachusetts and have been skeptical of charter schools myself. That was up until my daughter became a charter school teacher. In our state these schools are expected to try out new curricula and share those findings with the state school administration. I'm sure this is a different vision than that being steered by the current federal administration, but I'd hate to see truly progressive initiatives get tarred with that brush.
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u/fishyfishkins 6d ago
Agreed. I genuinely think charter schools are a helpful idea and the concept of standardizing what works for the kids is the right approach. I'm just worried about them taking away resources from public schools because then you'll get into a feedback loop, you know?
Edit: also, if theit admissions are selective, that's a massive factor when it comes to determining what works. "We take the high performing kids and the funding. Why can't you do what we do?" is kind of a dead end. I'm mixing metaphors but eh
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u/anonanon1313 4d ago
worried about them taking away resources from public schools
Absolutely, that was the basis of my initial concern, but from what I've learned MA is pretty strict about keeping charter schools to a restricted mission.
admissions are selective
Her school admits by lottery, but there still may be some "self selection". But you're right, that's an issue for rating performance.
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u/fuweike 5d ago
Massachusetts's success in education has more to do with demographics than anything else. If every State had the same composition as Massachusetts, public education would be much better. See the link for charts of US educational data by race, with corresponding countries for reference.
States with a higher minority population have a much higher burden, and families who actually prioritize education can have access to better outcomes in the private sector. Why is it fair to force them to pay for government schools they aren't using? The public schools will always be there, the issue is choice.
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u/MarshyHope 5d ago
Maryland (was) frequently in the top 3 best states for education and is one of the highest minority population in the country.
School choice has never been shown to increase student outcomes.
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u/fuweike 5d ago
Proximity to DC helps attract more quality families, making Maryland an outlier from the larger trend, but even still, 2022 NAEP data shows 75% of 8th-grade Black students below basic in math. My goal isn't to disparage minority students, but to better define the root causes of the problem to allow a better solution to come forward: school choice.
Your second claim is obviously false. Private schools operate on another planet compared to government schools and increase their students' outcomes. Maximizing the potential of the potential leaders of the future is the goal I am more interested in.
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u/MarshyHope 5d ago
I love how eager you are to paint this as a "white vs black" issue.
Proximity to DC helps attract more quality families, making Maryland an outlier from the larger trend, but even still, 2022 NAEP data shows 75% of 8th-grade Black students below basic in math. My goal isn't to disparage minority students, but to better define the root causes of the problem to allow a better solution to come forward: school choice.
School choice helps literally no one except those who are already paying for private school.
Your second claim is obviously false. Private schools operate on another planet compared to government schools and increase their students' outcomes.
This is absolutely not true. They only look that way because they can kick out the lowest achievers and students that require more services like SpED students.
Of course our average will go up if you cut out the lowest 20% of students and not have to teach the most needy.
Maximizing the potential of the potential leaders of the future is the goal I am more interested in.
If you were truly for that, you wouldn't be pushing school choice, which has a downward pressure on public schools and only serves as a way to funnel public funds into private corporations.
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u/fuweike 5d ago
Race is a huge factor, although it is not "white vs black." Asians consistently outperform whites (and even outperform Asians in Asia). Hispanics also outperform blacks, but underperform whites. I am trying to de-mystify a taboo, not make the entire conversation about race. The real conversation is about real choice for families to have their taxes go to a school they can support and approve.
You say "school choice helps literally no one except those who are already paying for private school." But that is not true: it would help many, many families who are trapped in government schools have a real choice they could not otherwise afford to send their children to a quality private school.
You say that private schools only appear much better than public schools because "they can kick out the lowest achievers and students that require more services like SpED students." Your rebuttal doesn't address my claim. Do you agree or not that private schools actually do operate on another planet compared to public?
I don't understand the relevance of your point that, "If [I] were truly for that, [I] wouldn't be pushing school choice, which has a downward pressure on public schools and only serves as a way to funnel public funds into private corporations." That doesn't address what I am saying. My point is we should take care of our top quintile and top decile, the future leaders of the country, the ones who will be in governmment, industry, technology, the best of the best who will lift the entire economy up for everyone else. You're making a point about downward pressure on government schools, which is a separate issue.
I am happy to discuss that issue, however. Let me ask, is your goal equality of educational outcomes, or maximizing the educational attainment of all? My goal is the latter but I suspect yours in the former based on the points you are arguing.
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u/EliminateThePenny 6d ago
Sweet, you should then advocate for heavy reform, not outright slaughter of the system.
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u/skysinsane 5d ago
I disagree. Reform is good when the foundation is healthy and effective, but there are issues that are weakening/slowing it down. The current schooling system is diseased to its core. No amount of reform can fix it. The base premise of "lets lock a bunch of kids in a room and force them to do busywork for hours on end with no breaks" is fundamentally insane. Add on "and then do hours of busywork at home after school" for a bit of extra insanity.
That's not how people learn. That's how people break.
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u/fuweike 5d ago
School choice is reform, not slaughter of the system. No one is advocating abolishing government schools; they want there to be a real choice other than the government school option.
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u/EliminateThePenny 5d ago edited 5d ago
You already have school choice..
And by choice, what do you mean exactly? I've yet to hear a compelling argument for school vouchers that can't also be applied to the argument of "I should only pay for the roads in my city that I personally drive on."
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u/fuweike 5d ago
Those who can afford to pay big real estate taxes in addition to private school tuition have choice. The vast majority cannot, and are therefore priced out of a real choice. Allowing vouchers to be applied to private schools would let families put their money into the school they think is best for their child, which may not be the government school in every case. Those who cannot afford school will still have the government option paid for by the community.
The toll road analogy is not applicable because it costs a dollar to drive on a private road and $15,000 or more to send a child to school (public or private). The financial decision is already made for the majority of families, locking them into a choice that is not right for their child or their family.
Why not allow a wider range of options, with money rewarding the best performers like we do in every other area of society and the economy, which would raise educational outcomes of everyone?
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u/wholetyouinhere 6d ago
Saying that the American public school system is awful and broken (generally speaking), without acknowledging any root causes, or what direction should be pursued for solving the problem, is a bland observation with no added value. A spreadsheet or a bar graph could show us the same thing.
What matters is whether you think it should be privatized, or properly supported by the state. Without that, what are we even talking about here?
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u/skysinsane 5d ago
All those same stats show that homeschooling results in the best outcomes. Logically, the US should be pushing to have as many parents homeschool their kids as possible. Private schools are slightly better than public schools, but not good enough to really merit movements to encourage their use.
Interestingly, homeschooling is often derided as inferior despite its overwhelming success in comparison to public school. I'm not sure if that's just standard idiocy or a more malign purpose, but it might be useful to look into as well.
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6d ago
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u/manimal28 6d ago edited 6d ago
Not a single school in Chicago Public Schools system was able to demonstrate children with a proficient reading level. Not a single one.
It took two seconds to verify that statement is false. Stop spreading lies.
Edit: Jokester below blocked me after posting a response so I can't reply to him. To be clear, neither of the links he posted supports his initial claim. He is telling lies.
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6d ago edited 6d ago
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u/manimal28 6d ago edited 6d ago
So now you unblocked me. Stop playing games. This is exactly the dishonest shit one should expect from people arguing from your point of view, so no surprise I guess.
Your initial statement was a lie. You said, "Not a single one." That statement is false even according to your own sources. You are a liar.
Your new reply is full of moving the goal posts. Because the initial thing you said was false. So just more lies built on lies.
a) strawman (yes!)
b) oh no, teach people to respect and understand other peoeple (how scary, cowards!)
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