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PaperclipPerfector  12d ago (text post)   33241 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 10, 2025

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Curious for people's thoughts on the Dept of Education getting shut down? Personally I think it's a good thing - our education system has had terrible outcomes with no accountability for far too long.

Is there a good breakdown anywhere as to what the Department of Education actually does, aside from administering national standards of achievement and the testing thereof?

They administer grants to the states for secondary education and financial aid and primary education in districts whose budget vastly exceeds their property tax receipts (Title I funding ).

A quick google shows that it mostly administers policy, sets standards, and disburses federal funds to states.. On it's face I think that if we don't care about federal education policy and allow states to just educate as they please, there should be practically no issue with destroying the entire department.

As long as the funding continues to flow to the states of course. I'm sure if this means that DOGE is pulling the funding... that could get quite messy. The optics would be terrible there I'm sure.

On it's face I think that if we don't care about federal education policy and allow states to just educate as they please, there should be practically no issue with destroying the entire department.

Then what does the fact that there is a lot of people who are really quite invested in the department not being destroyed tell you?

That a lot of people are deeply invested in the federal government telling states how to educate.

Does anyone know if they make grants to NGOs?

A programme which is block-granted to states is the best possible grounds for Trump's opponents to fight a legal battle on - it is essentially impossible to claim that you're not impounding money which Congress wanted spent (as opposed to "temporarily pausing spending to investigate possible fraud and inefficiency" or whatever Trump will tell the judge he is doing at USAID) when what Congress wanted is for cash to flow to state governments. And there is a well-resourced plaintiff with unequivocal standing and no incentive to back down.

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