The bloated mess that is the Department of Education keeps proving that federal control over American schools is a giant waste of money—and a threat to our children’s future. Secretary Linda McMahon is finally acting on President Trump’s bold—and overdue—plan to dismantle this behemoth that has done nothing but pump billions into failed programs. Take the so-called Education Innovation and Research program, for instance. Since 2017, taxpayers have poured $1.5 billion into this federal boondoggle, supposedly to improve learning for disadvantaged kids. What have we got to show for it? Very little. Instead of breakthroughs, we see more bureaucratic mumbo jumbo and vague promises.
Washington loves throwing cash at “innovations” that sound good on paper but fail spectacularly in practice. The EIR program demands programs be “rigorously evaluated” and actually improve student outcomes. Reality? The federal government can’t even figure out if these grants are doing any good! Congress has begged the Department of Education for years to be transparent, to show real results, to share what actually works. The department has mostly ignored these demands, hiding behind buzzwords and fancy reports with no meaningful proof that billions of those taxpayer dollars are lifting student achievement.
The truth is ugly. When outside experts finally got a good look at the prior version of EIR—the “Investing in Innovation” program—they found that only about a quarter of the projects had even a modest positive impact. And those results barely made a dent after the government spent $1.4 billion on it. Think about that: One and a half billion wasted while our kids fall behind in math and reading compared to other countries. This is progressive education policy in action—big spending, little accountability, and zero results. The leadership in D.C. pats itself on the back while classrooms struggle and parents lose faith.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s push to shift responsibilities out of this federal black hole makes perfect sense. Education should be in the hands of parents, states, and local communities—not a distant, unaccountable bureaucracy filled with cheerleaders for socialist-style “innovation” that never materializes. But Democrats and globalist bureaucrats cling to these failed programs like a life raft. They want to keep controlling how and what children learn, pushing their left-wing agendas, while draining American pockets and wrecking educational outcomes.
If the Department of Education can’t even prove that spending billions on “innovation” actually helps kids, maybe it’s time to ask the tough question: Why does this agency still exist? Radically reworking or outright dismantling the DoE isn’t just smart; it’s necessary if we care about America’s future. The federal government’s idea of “innovation” has been nothing short of a national embarrassment. Are taxpayers really going to bankroll another decade of the same failure, or will we finally put parents, not bureaucrats, back in charge?
Source: American Thinker
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