Episode 108: The Devastating Impact of Eliminating the Department of Education

In this episode, Dr. Almitra Berry explores the potential consequences of eliminating the Department of Education as proposed in Project 2025. She highlights the importance of federal education funding, regulations, and data collection in ensuring equity and quality in education. Dr. Berry argues against the biased language and ideological perspective in Project 2025's education section, advocating for neutral, fact-based policy discussions. She emphasizes the critical role of the Department of Education in coordinating federal education programs, protecting civil rights, and informing evidence-based policymaking through comprehensive data collection. Dr. Berry encourages listeners to get involved, share the episode, and advocate for policies that support vulnerable student groups.

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Transcript

Dr Almitra Berry: 0:01

Hey, there equity lawyers. Thanks for joining me. Do you understand the assignment? Last episode, I talked about Project 2025, and I promised you that we were going to dive into each of 12 topics in depth, and I had hoped that we would have enough time in the calendar to do each topic separately, but looking at the calendar and the stack of guests that are lined up to come on to the show, I couldn't make that happen, so we're consolidating that down to six any additional content, of course, will be available on the Patreon channel for those of you who subscribe there. But I am excited, because we do have a very comprehensive lineup of guests to bring on to the show, but I'm going to ask you one more time before we get started, do you understand the assignment? I want you to imagine our education system without the Department of Education, where crucial federal oversight disappears, where data driven decisions are replaced by guesswork, happenstance, political ideology, what would happen to the millions of students who rely on federal support the comprehensive data that works to guide the policies we craft at the state and local level. So today, we're going to start by exploring why eliminating the Department of Education, as is called for in Project 2025 could have devastating consequences, and why federal data collection is the backbone of informed, equitable education. So stay tuned. We're going to uncover the real impact. And I want you to share this conversation with other people and have it around your kitchen table, your cards game, your dominoes game, whatever it is you're doing at this time of year, going back and rereading the 30 odd pages, I believe it is that is in Project 2025, focused only on education, one of the things that stuck out to me repeatedly was the amount the level of bias and charged language that I found terms like woke diversocrats, radical racial and gender ideologies and predatory politicians, the language in the document indicates that there is a strong ideological bias against People like us, those of you who listen to my podcast, those of you who have like minded thoughts as me, those of us who are committed to serving all children, all children. The other thing that that language does is is it undermines any objectivity that might be found in the arguments they present. I believe that it is important to use neutral language, to use facts and fact based language when we're having discussions about policy, if we're going to have constructive debate, if we're going to avoid alienating different viewpoints. We have to stick to facts and evidence. So that's what I'm going to do. So let's look at, for starters, their proposal to eliminate the Department of Education Project 2025 the education chapter is written by a woman by the name of Lindsay Burke. Now if you are a total news head, you may have seen her before. She's the director of the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation. And if you're not familiar with Heritage Foundation, it is a conservative think tank. They are the base behind the entire project 2025 document. So she does have a bachelor's degree, she does have a master's degree, but all of the work that I could find that she has proposed has been with a far right, ideological perspective. So again, let's keep in mind the source. So Burke this document. Let's start with what the Department of Education is. Just a quick primer for those of you who aren't familiar with it, established back in 1969 This is following Johnson's War on Poverty and the Civil Rights amendments that really started to bring an idea, a sense of equity around education, or at least a sense of a proposed sense of equality, and recognizing that all children. Had not been receiving equal even education, never mind equitable. They do have a big budget, approximately $90 billion 4000 employees. It is the third largest discretionary budget among the cabinet agencies. But I would argue that our children, our future, are worth every dime we can pour into them, certainly nowhere near the size of the defense budget. Primary role of the department is funding and administration, civil rights enforcement, special education, support, data collection, research and regulatory oversight. That's what they do. Let's pick apart one at a time. What project 2025 says about the Department of Education? Their first claim is that federal spending has not improved student outcomes. We spend too much money on students, and they haven't gotten any better. And yes, we do spend money on student but keep in mind that federal funding is a very small portion of the budget that actually makes it down to the local school district, a local education agency, it has significantly improved access to education for students who are marginalized. It is the federal funding that supports low income students that support special needs students, federal funding the Department of Education helps to provide resources for college loans for students, for children with special needs, disadvantaged children at risk, and the innovation grants and professional development, I want you teachers that are listening, find out where your funding for the professional development that you get in your school or district is coming from, because the vast majority of it is probably coming from your title one part d, if I have my parts and numbers right, that's federal money. It also supports educational research. It is effective. You just have to decide what it is that you believe is important for education. A second claim that they have is that there's bureaucratic bloat, their words, bureaucratic bloat, federal, federal mandates, there's way too much, too much growth in bureaucracy. There's way too much inefficiency. In reality, if we do not have federal oversight, we will never have equity or quality across states. This idea that kids that are children will be born, grow up, raised, work until they retire or die and then die in the same teeny tiny community. Is insane. We are part of a global economy. How many of you have moved from one place to another at some point in time in your life? We have people immigrating into this country all the time, it is necessary to have some connective tissue across the states when it comes to education, to avoid or to at least start to address the disparities we see in terms of educational quality, the Department of Education does help to maintain national standards in education. I'm not talking about the standards that you're creating, your lesson plans to address your state adopted standards, but it does work to improve coordination and efficiency of the federal education programs. Otherwise, think how would Title One, how would funding and support for students with disabilities or students who qualify for free and reduced lunch, how would their supports look from state to state? Would qualification for free and reduced lunch even be the same? We have to have some connection across the states in order to work towards equity and equality for our children. Third claim that they make is that the department has been captured by special interest groups, groups like that, radical NEA and the aft teachers. Thank you for the work that you do. You are represented by unions that advocate for people like you, for educators and for our students as well. It is important that stakeholders are involved in education policy. That means teachers, that means school leaders, district leaders, parents, school board members, otherwise, who's creating policy and based on what you're the front line. I'm talking to you who are stand up and work in classrooms every single day. You are the front line. You need to have. Voice in policy. Your unions that represent you are that voice, and because they are yes, national organizations, but every single one of you that's represented by a group, either NEA or aft, you have local representatives. You have a local voice that feeds up to a state voice that feeds up to the national voice. You have a voice and an opportunity to become more involved. And I would say that more than any other group, it's those of you who are on the front lines every day that should have a voice in policy about education. Claim Number Four that they make as to why the Department of Education should be closed is that their regulations have exceeded statutory authority and imposed undue burdens. And I'm going to get into some of those regulations as we go through the other five episodes. Specifically, there's some, and I don't want to give it away, there are some very interesting things that they have to say about policies that have been written. But what kind of world would we live in if there were no regulations? I think they call that anarchy. Regulations are essential for protecting civil rights, they're essential for making sure that our students, our children, are in a safe, inclusive and equitable learning environment, especially at a time when those things are being taken away, safety, inclusion, equity. So it is the Department of Education that enforces the federal anti discrimination laws. It is the Department of Education that protects the rights of students, especially those learners that come from marginalized groups, our children of color, our LGBTQ students, our students of low wealth, our children with special needs. But throughout all that they say on this topic, in general, it was very difficult for me to get past the language, the biased and charged language their document, Project 2025 document, oversimplifies, to say the least, oversimplifies some very complex educational issues. It lacks consideration for the negative impacts on our vulnerable student populations, and it assumes that state and local control would automatically lead to better outcomes without addressing the potential disparities between states. Now, I worked in a position in a capacity, technically, I still do that serves students across the United States, in and out of states. And I can tell you, I can just I can see the map of the United States right now, and I can tell you the states that need the most help, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas. We know where those are geographically, and the data out of those states, even pulling Texas out of it really, really showcases the disparities based on race in states where they have had enough power to continue to oppress our children of color and children of low wealth. So let me not go down that rabbit hole right now. The second topic I want to talk about today is their argument to reduce federal data collection. You might think, well, you know, it's just data. How much do we need to collect? Really well, this is the data collection is something that's done by the Department of Education, their role in collecting, analyzing and reporting data on our education system is crucial. It is critical. Now, some of that comes from Me, in a very selfish way as a researcher. I feel like I live in the in the NCS and ies tables, but not just me. It's not just me. When we look at what's gathered, you have information on a variety of aspects of education, school conditions, teacher demographics, student performance. You all have heard me pull out numbers like I believe it's roughly 87% of elementary school teachers are white women, where 64% of our students are children of color. Those numbers would not be available without the Department of Education and the National Center for Education Statistics, the NCS and you might say, well, you know what? If we don't have them, what if it's, you know, state to state, we look at these things. But the NCS provides that data too, with some consistency, school conditions, student performance, all of this information, all of this data that they collect, helps to inform policy makers, whether it's federal, state or local level, this is how we can make evidence based decisions to improve education quality and get a handle on equity. The data supports the development of policy and reform. It gives us insight into effective teaching methods. It identifies key issues in education and beyond all of that. And probably most importantly, because we can get data from a lot of different places, the data collected when the Department of Education, when NCS collects this data, they make sure that it's accurate, relevant, accessible, that it promotes transparency and public trust, and on the issue of access, when I am looking at state data from one state to the next, it is amazing how much stuff I cannot find going to a State Department of Education's website. And if you don't believe me, check your state, and check a couple of other states and see how easy it may or may not be to find information. So what do they want to do reduce data collection? They want to move the National Center for Education Statistics over to the Census Bureau. Tell me why that makes sense. They say it would streamline data collection. But think about the disruption, the loss of specialized expertise in education data. It is crucial to maintain a dedicated education statistics agency at the federal level set that we continue to get high quality, relevant data collection that comes from educator knowledge, not the Census Bureau. And no one trusts the Census Bureau as it is, or very few of us, I don't know. Does that sound like a little paranoia, whatever. All right, never mind. Let's not go there. They want to consolidate research centers into the National Science Foundation. So put education research into the NSF, because that would be more efficient. But again, education research requires specialized focus and expertise that just might get diluted if it goes into a an agency that's focused on broader science, the potential loss of targeted education research that directly informs K 12 and higher ed policy is a significant concern, not just from policy, but from a researcher standpoint, those of us who do research so that we can also train teachers and provide professional development with relevant data. Now on top of that, it's not just that. So that's the K 12 data. They would take the higher ed data and put it into the Department of Labor, so no more K or pre K, early childhood through higher ed in one place. But let's take the adult stuff and let's put it over in labor, because that makes sense. Higher Ed data is still education. It's still education, and needs to be in that education focused area. Otherwise, how do you look? How would you find the information on looking at high school completion to college completion, high school completion to enrollment in two year colleges, four year colleges, trade and vocational schools. You need to have a coherent data set, an integrated and coherent data set, otherwise you're fragmenting it all and it becomes impossible to find what you're looking for. Again, to inform policy and practice. Another criticism I'll say that they have is that there are too many data proxies. I suppose I can put it that way. They say that graduation rates and average earnings are inadequate proxies for educational quality, and sure, those two metrics do have some limitations. You all have heard me say before that graduation rate is kind of a false metric, because there's not a consistent standard for graduation. Because folks, let's you know, those of us who have been class or who are or have been classroom teachers, we. Have, while everyone does have bias, and so our grades may reflect that bias, because we are not as pure in determining what something the grade that should be assigned to a student based solely on the work that's performed. And aside from that, the work that's performed varies from class to class. So graduation rate, yeah, we got a few issues with that, sure, but the solution is not to get rid of it. The solution is to look at what we're doing wrong, to improve our data collection, to expand data collections, to look at other metrics, not to get rid of it. Comprehensive data should include a variety of indicators of educational quality and student success. More on that. On my in my book that's coming out very soon. If you have not checked that out, make sure you're following me on social media and get ready for book study in the Patreon channel. Okay, let me get back to what we're talking about. And we want to make, excuse me. They want to. They say, put it this way, what they claim is that student data is not available to family members, and it should be available by family structure. Listen very carefully. Data by family structure, that means single parent, married parents, excuse me, parents that are married to someone of the opposite gender versus parents who are married to someone with the same gender assigned at birth, traditional marriage, gay marriage. I'll make my language a little bit more simple. They want to see how data looks for children coming from various family structures. I think that's none of their fucking business. Pardon me, there's some privacy concerns there. There's some complexity in collecting and reporting data by family structure, not to mention the fact that we've already got people legislators in states who are trying to remove children from homes, from air quotes around this, and you can't see me non traditional. What they say is a man and a wife, fam, married, family, Mom and Dad. Data Collection about how children do has everything to do with how children do in schools, how we teach, how we learn, what we're teaching, what they're learning, and where we need to make improvements. I've said it a million times in my career, those kids come to us every single day. It is our job to teach them, and it doesn't matter what's going on at home, it's our job to teach them, and their desire to dig into family structure is none of their fucking business. I'm sorry that's a little emotional, but as a child of a single parent, after my father died when I was seven years old and my mother never remarried, what difference did it make? What my parental situation was. I was a child. I needed an education. So the whole comprehensive federal data collection, again, it's vital. We need it for informed policymaking. We need it for accountability. We need it to promote equity. Collecting data at the federal level, not at the state level. Sure, collect your state data, but we need federal data so that we can see benchmarking, so we can compare across states, so we can avoid data silos. It's critical to identify and support our vulnerable student groups, so students with disabilities, those from low financial wealth. We want to make sure that every single child receives necessary resources and attention, and we cannot do that if we are not looking at data from a federal level. Do you understand the assignment? If you believe in the power of informed decision making. If you believe in the importance of educational equity, equity, I want you to share this episode with your friends, share it with your family, post it on social media, make sure you're registered to vote. We want to ensure that every single student has the opportunity to succeed, backed by solid data and by thoughtful policies, and then join me again next episode, I have a guest that's coming to you, and if you've got a question, a topic, special request anything in the meantime, text it to me. Look down in the notes for the link. I do want to hear your stories, and remember, don't worry about the things you cannot change. Change the things you. Can no longer accept or that you will not accept in the future. I.