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by WalterBright 19 days ago
The Department of Education has spent $3 trillion since its inception in 1980, and academic accomplishment has not advanced at all.
3 comments

> The Department of Education has spent $3 trillion since its inception in 1980, and academic accomplishment has not advanced at all

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES), which administers research grants, is a division of the Department of Education. Given your point, how much of this funding was dedicated to research? Even if $500 million (its much more, but I digress) has been invested in research since 1980, this does not negate your point since the Department of Education does more than advancing academic achievement?

Each state has its own rules for education. The Department of Education mostly funds programs based on federal law, but they can only regulate state's activities they’re breaking federal law, you can't solely blame the department for failures of multiple state governments.

Is there any evidence that the education research has been of any benefit to educational results?

The dollars spent is not evidence of accomplishment.

Frankly, yes.
yes as in ... ?
Are you saying that the priorities of the Department of Education have been misplaced, or that it was a mistake to have a Department of Education at all?

"Academic accomplishment has not advanced at all" feels like something people say without expanding on what they mean by it.

Pick your definition of academic accomplishment if you like.

What have we got to show for spending $3 trillion?

test scores have actually gone down in a number of states I don't think whatever the department of education is doing is actually working.
State governments administer education separately, the Department of Education's job is to make sure they are following federal law. The Department mainly administers federal programs that dish out funding to states.

Y'all really don't understand how education works in America and your comments make it clear for all to see.

By what yardstick should we then measure the DoEd's performance-per-dollar, or determine whether it represents "waste"?

Because it seems to me that a chief indicator that waste likely exists is an inability to show ROI.

Waste exists when there is no incentive to eliminate it.