Morning Minute 12/03/24:
“How is Education Affected By Bureaucracy?”
The answer to that question requires that we understand these 3 important quotes.
1st: “Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.” (a)
2nd: “You have to surrender your opinion, in order to learn.” (b)
3rd: “For bureaucracies, procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing!” (c)
(a) Margaret Mead b) Larry Arnn (c) Thomas Sowell
On October 17, 1979, President Carter signed the law creating a separate Department of Education (ED) in the federal government. The stated purpose was to raise the quality of education by standardizing what is taught, so that small school systems with limited funding, would be able to offer the same educational opportunities as large, well-funded school systems. They created a huge bureaucracy to accomplish this goal.
The ED employs @ 4400 full time workers with a total budget of @ $441 billion. They support educational efforts nationwide from pre-school through college with grants, and direct investments in schools & school systems. They are charged with creating “innovative” processes to create better results for students, teachers, and staff.
Now let’s examine the results of our massive investments through this bureaucracy. Out of 81 countries, the US was only 16th in science, and an abysmal 34th in math. We have students graduating from high school who cannot read at an 8th grade level. Remember that success in reading, science, and math comes from learning how to think. These performance drops have occurred since Common Core curriculum standards were mandated without any input from educational professionals.
We have “Affirmative Action,” “CRT,” and “DEI” programs that view race as much more important than performance. We are indoctrinating our youth in the Marxist views of the “oppressed vs the oppressors.” These include white privilege and toxic masculinity. We have adopted the distorted and radical American history from Howard Zinn, that begins by sharing that “the American Revolution was a fraud,” and goes downhill from there. Then, we continue by denigrating American Exceptionalism. And, we wonder why our youth cannot think on their own, nor function in a normal society.
Let’s reread Dr. Sowell’s statement: “For bureaucracies, procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing!” Our Department of Education spends more per student than any other nation to get the dismal outcomes we have. This leviathan bureaucracy is focused on methods and procedures, while ignoring the outcomes that are destroying our student’s opportunities to learn, to grow, and to perform at an acceptable level.
If a business fails in its mission, it closes. Since our Education Department failed in its mission, it must be closed. We must adopt the real function of education. To teach individuals how to think, not what to think. Present them with real facts. Let them draw their own conclusions. Then have them test those conclusions in the real world. That is how people learn to think, how to analyze, and how to adjust their conclusions based on real outcomes.
Reread Dr. Arne: “You have to surrender your opinion, in order to learn!” Our students, and our country, deserve no less!
“How IS Education Affected By Bureaucracy?”
That is today’s Morning Minute.
