The changes the Trump administration is making to the Department of Education are garnering a lot of negative attention from the mainstream media and progressives.
But any time the left raises a stink about something, it’s wise to ask: What’s the truth?
To answer that question, Stu Burguiere, host of “Stu Does America,” invites Angela Morabito, former press secretary for the U.S. Department of Education, on the show.
According to her, what is being presented as a political issue is not really political at all.
“What [President Trump] has done in these first couple weeks of his administration is really take a stand for students and say that the status quo is over,” she says.
While “that’s a threat to a lot of people,” the truth is what President Trump is doing is “[taking] power out of D.C. and [putting] it back in the hands of families” through “school choice” and more state and local power.
Morabito says that 12 states have already enacted school choice, and she’s hopeful that it’s only a matter of time before all 50 states adopt it.
“School choice is a movement that cannot and will not be stopped. … The overwhelming majority of voters on both sides of the political aisle believe that parents should be in the driver’s seat when it comes to where their children are educated,” she says.
This demand for school choice, she explains, really ignited when the pandemic exposed the public education system for its indoctrination and low standards.
“When school was happening at the kitchen table, you couldn’t hide that students cannot read, write, and do math, and a lot of parents realized the horrible truth,” says Morabito.
Virtual schooling only worsened the predicament. Huge learning gaps resulted from the shutdowns, which was especially apparent in blue states that kept schools closed the longest.
When Congress tried to fix the problem by creating the Elementary and Secondary School Education Relief Fund, which allocated “nearly $190 billion” to fixing those learning gaps, much of that money was squandered, especially by blue cities, on things like “ropes courses and athletic scoreboards and landscaping and hiring gender administrators.”
It’s clear that the entire system is flawed and needs to be dismantled. But what does that look like?
Morabito says that while “the federal government does have a role in education … the functions of the Department of Education could be better handled by other agencies.”
For example, “one of the core functions [of the Department of Education] is upholding federal civil rights law in education,” she says. “That may belong, really, at the Department of Justice. Let’s have the lawyers do the lawyering.”
Federal student aid is also being reconsidered.
“What would federal student aid look like as an independent agency that gets to function more like a bank? It could serve borrowers and taxpayers better,” says Morabito.
When you consider that “one in three eighth graders [in America] is functionally illiterate,” it’s clear that “the level of transparency and accountability at the federal level has to increase.”
“There are ways we can do that while actually decreasing the size of government,” says Morabito.
However, the change that’s needed has to start in Congress.
“It would take an act of Congress to dismantle the Department of Ed, and that doesn’t look like just locking the door and throwing away the key. That looks like a really thoughtful sort of unwinding of this giant knot that we have in D.C.,” she says.
But it has to be done.
“We don’t need 4,400 bureaucrats spending $80 billion a year and not educating a single student,” says Morabito.
“We can do so much better in our schools if we just put power back in the hands of parents, and I think that getting rid of the Department of Education in a thoughtful and orderly way would be a tremendous step forward to the goals we all want to see for America’s kids.”
To hear more of the conversation, as well as Morabito’s take on Linda McMahon, Trump’s pick for the new education secretary, who the left says is unqualified, watch the clip above.
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