Department of Education - Col. Allen West

"Education is the great equalizer. With a good education, any child in America can live his dream."
~Col. Allen West, Candidate for Congress District 22

I received an e-mail from the Democratic Executive Committee yesterday that said: Please join us at an education rally & press conference tomorrow in Boca Raton. We will be out there standing against Allen West's absurd claim that the Department of Education needs to be abolished. Don't let Republicans & tea partiers seize the debate! Teachers and students are especially welcome to stand with us to challenge Allen West's radical vision of education.

First of all, I find it amusing that they are making any statement such as this and proclaiming that Col. Allen West is against education. I don't know if Col. Allen West said that this department needs to be abolished but there are many in the Republican Party who believe that it should and for many good reasons.

According to the National Review, the Department of Education was created as a straight political payoff to the teachers’ unions by Pres. Jimmy Carter (in return for their 1976 endorsement). According to the National Center for Education Statistics, DE’s original budget, in 1980, was $13.1 billion (in 2007 dollars), and it employed 450 people. By 2000, it had increased to $34.1 billion, and by 2007 it had more than doubled to $73 billion. The budget request for fiscal 2011 is $77.8 billion, and the department employs 4,800.

All of this spending has done nothing to improve American education. Between 1973 and 2004, a period in which federal spending on education more than quadrupled, mathematics scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress rose just 1 percent for American 17-year-olds. Between 1971 and 2004, reading scores remained completely flat."

This is just more government, more Unions, which means more voters for Democrats, while our kids are not getting any smarter. Their parents are getting poorer paying for government departments such as this and all the bureaucracy. The Democrats want bigger government whether it works or not, all for the vote. And our kids get dumber by the day and schools re-write history or do not teach aspects of it pretending it never existed....sort of like the history plaques idea at our beach. They stick their heads in the sand to illegal immigration and many believe it is, once again, all for the vote, not to offend Hispanics. How pathetic is that?

Policy recommendations from the Cato Institute on education.