The opening page to the U.S. Department of Education’s website reads: Fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.
Aha! Now we see why the Trump Administration is condemning a federal department that ensures the education of a hundred million children, teens, young people … and adults of all ages—regardless of race, sex, creed, color, ability, and religion.
The website’s sub sections include: higher education (financial assistance to go to college), adult programs (to complete GEDs), K-12 education, teaching and administration (assistance for educators and principals), grants and programs, and laws & policy.
There’s even an overview for laypeople to understand the purpose of this federal department: “Education is primarily a State and local responsibility in the United States. It is States and communities, as well as public and private organizations of all kinds, that establish schools and colleges, develop curricula, and determine requirements for enrollment and graduation.”
Aha! Even the U.S. Department of Education acknowledges the states’ and communities’ roles in educating our country’s youth.
Makes perfect sense now: why only idiots would have an axe to grind with our nation’s great aspirational goal, envisioned by Constitutional framers in the 18th century at our country’s formation, to provide free education for every single child living in this country.
See, democracy can only work with educated voters. Democracy, therefore, cannot be maintained in a nation of idiots. Idiots include people who refuse to routinely check out opposing views, who want immigrants kicked out (because their beef is not just with illegal immigrants), whose bigotry and prejudices run generations deep just like the Jew-hating Germans a hundred years ago, who do not believe in American journalism as a legitimate investigative watchdog of every aspect of government—written into the U.S. Constitution.
These are the same idiots, no doubt, who somehow managed to graduate high school without taking a mandatory government or civics course. That course has been cut from U.S. high schools for a good 20 years now.
So the Idiocracy has begun.
Idiots don’t got no brains
There’s a difference between people who learn slowly and an alarming number of individuals who insist on maintaining an idiot’s view of the world. The U.S Department of Education, originally dating back to the days after the Civil War as an act to bring Americans back together as one nation, clearly is a partner in education instead of a ramrod forcing ideals such as ‘wokism’ (which was never a thing, by the way).
By this time in the 21st century, don’t you think kids in rural areas have a right to learn everything that their peers living in major cities learn? Don’t they have the right to the same science labs, libraries, field trips, scholastic achievements and honors, scholarships, along with technology (laptops/computers in every classroom for every single enrolled student) as well as all sports and all fine and performing arts?
These are the basics to a 21st century kid.
Still, because the U.S. does allow communities and states to call the shots on a child’s education, we have a state than banned Journalism as an elective course in all public schools and another state requiring Biblical ‘teachings’ in science textbooks. We have a state that banned yoga from being taught in public schools even as a weekly after-school extracurricular program while another state fully implements yoga in its public school curriculum, teaching kids to meditate and calm themselves (which is necessary to learn, by the way).
What kind of idiot has a problem with yoga?
I’ll tell you the type: an uptight ignorant religious bigot, someone with a closed instead of an open mind.
Two courses that should be included in every public school in the U.S. are Psychology and World Religion.
You think the past decades-long wars don’t warrant our youth’s complete understanding of religious beliefs? Americans should be studying up on it and not just through internet ‘research.’
Today’s youth also are not reading books anymore. They’re not reading articles online either. Their attention span is about one minute due to smart phones, social media and TikTok. This is absolutely the wrong direction for humanity, well those who want a democratic government. But we have states with a list a mile long of banned books. Poor American kids, stuck in the middle of the 21st century, confused with teachers encouraging them to read and learn everything they can while their communities warn of dire consequences—for learning. Today’s kids are caught between states and communities pretending to have their best interests at heart (and they don’t) and a liberal ideology that pulled many voters toward the ‘blow it all up’ approach to government management.
American idiots know a few things. One: If you don’t like something, blow it up. Two: They can believe anything they want whether it’s right or wrong, true or lie. Three: Schools are a political punching bag (so maybe education isn’t all that important).
If we’re going to get back to educational basics, then start with allowing teachers to teach. Despite what idiots think, teachers are not the enemy. Teachers want to share their passion for their subjects. Youth respond to human passion like they respond to a favorite entertainer whose musical message resonates with their own lives. It matters to them. Splitting hairs over yoga, journalism, Bible stories and banned books just creates more societal distrust in education … creating soon-to-be more adults angry at themselves for having missed educational opportunities while in school due to a bunch of powerful strangers’ petty politics. After all, free education is just a few years in the span of a long fulfilling life.