Government Shutdown Exposes Department of Education as Unnecessary

When Washington, DC, comes to a standstill, the liberal media is quick to tell you that the sky is falling. Randi Weigngarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, and her union cronies claim that schools will collapse without the Department of Education and that President Donald Trump is to blame for the closure. She has said he is “holding the American people hostage.”

The only ones holding Americans hostage are the teachers unions. They held their children's education hostage during COVID. They hold teachers hostage when they do not conform to liberal norms. And worst of all, they treat parents as obstacles and hold them hostage when they object.

The government shut down, federal workers at the Department of Education were laid off, more than half of the DOE staff was laid off, and schools remain open. The teachers are teaching. The students are learning. The world did not end.

Here's the truth the media will never say out loud: This shutdown pulled back the curtain on one of the biggest scams in America: the U.S. Department of Education.

THE SCHUMER CLOSURE IS LEAVING OUR TROOPS AND THEIR FAMILIES HIGH AND DRY

For decades, teachers unions and the liberal allies they fund in DC have told the American people that without federal bureaucracy, education would crumble. They said states couldn't handle education funding, accountability or innovation without “guidance.”

They were wrong.

Schools continued to operate during the shutdown because real funding (Title I, IDEA, and other major streams) flows through long-established formulas and scheduled allocations that continue even when federal staff are away from their desks. States already manage these dollars.

The shutdown simply stopped administrative processing and new regulations, not the actual flow of funds to schools. In other words, the Department of Education was not “running the system” before this, and the shutdown proved it.

TRUMP IS USING THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN TO DO SOMETHING NO PRESIDENT HAS EVER DONE

The shutdown demonstrated what many of us already knew: states are not only capable of managing education, they already do it. Education in this country is funded and governed primarily at the state and local level. The federal government adds bureaucracy, not value.

Let's be clear: there was never any reason for the United States Department of Education to exist. It was created as a political favor in 1979, an agreement between Jimmy Carter and the teachers unions to secure their power. And it shows.

Teachers unions are not just one of many actors in this story. They are the reason the Department of Education exists. The department gives them power, money, and political protection, and in return, the unions defend the department's existence at all times. One feeds the other. That's why they work so hard to convince Americans that the country would collapse without them, because without Washington they lose control.

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Teachers unions have been feeding off the Department of Education for decades to weaponize money and influence, injecting ideology into curriculum standards, teacher training programs, and accreditation channels that tell parents to sit down and shut up.

Now that the lights in the apartment are off, they are panicking. You'll see their headlines: “The World Is Burning Without the Department of Education!” The only thing that “burns” are the lies they have been selling to Americans for 40 years.

Here in the real world, children learn, teachers teach, and parents take back control. The system works well without federal interference.

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This closure is a wake-up call. He didn't break American education. He exposed who has been breaking it all along.

Unions can cry about this. The rest of us will continue doing our jobs.

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