Is Education the Forgotten Purpose of Public Schools?

Here I remember my days in public schools at a time when my fellow students and I were blessed with good teachers who taught and parents who supported them. Now we're in a much different situation, one reason President Donald J. Trump is considering closing down the U.S. Department of Education. I spent 35 years teaching and as an administrator if private schools, 7th Grade to grad school, and I loved every minute of it. Today, though education, public and private, is challenged by a host of issues that tend to focus teachers, professors, and their schools on social engineering rather than education. It's a situation that must change for the good of our country's youth and for the future well-being of America. For more Christian commentary, check my website www.rexmrogers.com or my YouTube channe @DrRexRogers. #DepartmentofEducation #DEI #accountability #academicexcellence 

Transcript

Is the U.S. Department of Education critical to the success of American education?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #192 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

 I remember when the federal Department of Education was created by President Jimmy Carter in 1979. Now President Donald Trump is considering dismantling the department.

“The heads of the education departments in multiple GOP-led states describe the move as a potential opportunity to get rid of red tape around funding and burdensome reporting requirements on their schools.”

“The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) recently showed students are still behind in reading and math, and that the gap between high-performing and low-performing students is widening.”

“Betsy DeVos, Trump’s secretary of Education in his first term…wrote in an op-ed for The Free Press that the department should be scrapped entirely.” She said, “Since its creation in 1979, the Department of Education has sent well more than $1 trillion to schools with the express purpose of closing the gaps between the highest and lowest performers. Today, those gaps are as wide as they have ever been, and by many measures, even wider.”

“Seven in 10 American fourth graders are not proficient readers, meaning they struggle with reading grade-level literature and comprehending informational texts. Forty percent graded out at “below basic,” meaning they struggle with basic comprehension. In math, the picture is similar: six in 10 fourth graders are behind in math. The gap between the highest and lowest performers has grown by 10 percent since 2019.”

She further noted, “The Department of Education does not run a single school. It does not employ any teachers in a single classroom. It doesn’t set academic standards or curriculum. It isn’t even the primary funder of education—quite the opposite. In most states, the federal government represents less than 10 percent of K–12 public education funding.”

So, we’re back to President Trump’s suggestion: why maintain a federal Department of Education? 

Before we return to the Department, allow me to share some flashback biographical information.

I didn’t know it then, but I know now that I was enormously blessed to attend Ohio public schools, 1958-1970, graduate from small but high academic standards Cedarville College in 1974 and finally earn a doctorate in political science from the University of Cincinnati in 1982. I say “blessed” because throughout my educational experience, except for no more than five poor teachers, I attended school when teachers taught the subject matter, I was incentivized and expected to work and to achieve, and I was told by involved parents that if I got in trouble at school I’d be in trouble at home. I learned reading, arithmetic, spelling, and science. I learned problem solving critical thinking skills. I learned to express myself, writing and speaking, in a manner that was logical and cogent.

Today, there are still dedicated, hard-working, high-standards public school teachers and professors in university. I do not blame teachers for all our educational problems. But these good faculty members and academic staff are working within a massive system now governed by corrupted values and motives misaligned with what it means to be well-educated in a free and pluralistic society.

The educational landscape in which they work today is like Earth-to-Mars different from what I experienced growing up.

As I said, I experienced only a handful of teachers who should have worked somewhere else. The rest of my teachers and professors were outstanding: Mrs. Holmes in 1st Grade and Mrs. Sigmon in 2nd who taught me to read, the Mackley brothers, Ray and Ivan, in 4th and 5th Grade, one who taught me geography and one who taught me fractions. And by the way, most of my elementary school experience included starting the day with the Pledge of Allegiance and a Bible verse read to us all.

In 8th Grade, favorite of many of my class cohort, Mr. Chuck Chippi, who taught me how to diagram sentences and speak the King’s English. He later went on to be a beloved high school administrator. Mrs. Crevey, who was short, and round as she was tall, but a tough-love taskmaster who taught me Algebra, Mrs. Burns who called me “Rexie” throughout my high school experience and taught me Latin, Mr. Farley who was a masterful lecturer and taught me to take notes as I learned American history and government. I was similarly blessed in college and university with professors dedicated to academic excellence and wanting to see it flower in me. Here and now, I thank and salute them all. I am forever grateful.

My point is that I was given a gift that has kept on giving throughout my life. I was well educated. I was taught to think.

But sadly, while I was yet in school, and certainly soon thereafter, education began focusing more on social engineering than on education.

And also – don’t miss this – the idea of getting in trouble at home if I caused problems in school, well, forget that. Now, many parents look upon teachers with suspicion, as adversaries, as someone to sue and who dare not discipline their child because, of course, he or she is angelic. Guess how the students game that system?

With this shift, teachers and administrators lost the authority to hold students accountable and thus to instill a proper work ethic and demand academic attainment.

Beginning in the 1960s, public schools became the nation’s Petri dish, the place where we experimented with our myriad, intractable social problems. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll, yes, but way more than this. Segregation/desegregation, school shootings and safety, debates about standardized testing, overcrowding, bullying, broken families and absentee fathers, technology pros and cons, self-absorbed teacher unions, jettisoning prayer and religion in general. And more recently, add woke or progressive, leftist ideological initiatives that have taken control of education from kindergarten to university: LGBTQ+ pride, gender fluidity and trans activism, pronoun mania, political correctness, critical race theory pushing DEI or diversity, equity, and inclusion, “anti-racism,” ironically, to the exclusion of many worthy educational programs.

This morass of social pathologies is rooted in something other than education as such. Schools and teachers can’t propagate values parents and society have rejected. Our school social pathologies are rooted in American society’s rejection of God and truth, the importance of two-parent families, recognition of moral parameters, work ethic, accountability, and a vision of a well-educated citizenry.

I was fortunate to be a student before these social problems dominated the school and classroom.

Today, millions of students are being ill-served by an educational bureaucracy more interested in social justice ideology than critical thinking, more interested in the politics of the adults than in the pedagogy of the students.

Just since I was a grade schooler, tens of millions of dollars have been dumped into public education, yet schools are now failing their students at all levels.

“The cost of the Department of Education is phenomenal.Since its creation, the Department of Education in the United States has spent over $1.4 trillion. This funding, which primarily comes from taxpayer dollars, has had zero impact on test scores…Over the past 40 years, results have stayed flat or declined in most categories, which shows just how wasteful this system happens to be.”

Why should we keep pouring money into a bottomless pit and see little to no positive in return? Why should American tax dollars be earmarked to support values and philosophies, like so-called “anti-racism” or “gender inclusivity” that undermine the body politic and e Pluribus Unum? Why, if our students are falling behind other developed nations, and our national debt is now $36 trillion, should we spend $80 billion per year on educational bureaucrats and unproductive programs? If we care about our children and the nation’s future, why should we put up with the Department of Education’s left-leaning initiatives that turn out graduates who cannot read or think well, do not know American civics, are ill-prepared for college or the workplace, and who have been inundated with extensive pessimism about their own country and their future?

The bottom line is this: a) How do we create an educational system that better educates our children for the future? b) How do we disband governmental activities, even a department, no longer serving a needed function, and save the federal government billions of dollars?

The U.S. Department of Education is not a sacred entity. It is a bureaucracy that has seen its day and deserves a death with dignity. Abolishing the Department of Education will, it is my hope, increase the chances that my grandchildren attending public schools gain an education as good as the one I received. This is only possible if education is the actual focus of the activities in the schools.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. Or check my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers for more podcasts and video.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2025   

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