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It's infamous for being full of Education PhDs who change up federal standards so that their side businesses selling education materials generate steady income.
The top Education PhD programs are famous for far left ideological gatekeeping because you need a degree from one of them to work at DoE.
People on the right just think that breaking it up into other departments would result in better people fulfilling it's requirements.
Can you give examples? States choose their own curricula, and ~15(?) years ago, there was grumbling about how Texas's bulk purchases drove down the cost of allegedly biased textbooks, which led to other states adopting them, for cost reduction.
It's more of a thumb on scale thing. The ED giver out a lot of grants and also has school evaluation programs. Assorted state groups who live off of grant money will toe the line when ED policies come out. Common Core was pushed out in part using "Race To The Top" grants.
Basically being the major source of education grants lets people at ED control what is trendy in education. It's not direct control but it's a significant influence.
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I should probably get tired of harping on this, but DoE is the Department of Energy; the Department of Education is ED. Fortunately, there's a helpful mnemonic coincidence that makes this easy to keep straight...
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