#doed

[dubiouslynamed]

Mariana Hernandez wrote:

March 22 at 3:21 PM ·

Let’s talk about public education.

Here’s the greatest hits playlist I keep hearing multiple times:

“Before the Department of Education, the U.S. was number one. Now we rank 31st. We spend more than anyone and 28% of grads can’t even read. The DOE failed. Let the states handle it again.”

Sounds bold, right?

Too bad most of it is dead wrong.

Let’s break it down. Slowly. Loudly.

1. “We were number one before the Department of Education.”

Oh? Says who?

The U.S. Department of Education was created in 1980.

The PISA test (the gold standard for comparing education across countries) didn’t even exist until 2000.

A LOT more under the cut.

There were no international rankings before that. No standardized tests between nations. No way to compare performance.

So where’s the proof we were “number one”?

There isn’t any. Because it didn’t exist.

That’s not a fact, it’s nostalgia.

You weren’t first in a race that hadn’t started yet.

2. “Now we rank 31st.”

In what, exactly?

Because there are two kinds of education rankings, and people love to smash them together like they mean the same thing.

A. PISA = actual test scores from real kids

This tests 15-year-olds around the world in:

Reading

Math

Science

U.S. PISA 2022 ( it’s done every 3 years) results:

6th in reading

13th in science

28th in math

We’re not failing. We’re holding our own, without training our kids for it, by the way (more on that later).

And remember: in 2000, PISA had 30 countries. Now it’s 80+. So yes, the ranking shifted. That doesn’t mean we tanked. It means the field grew.

B. Education system indexes ( like WPR) how the system looks on paper

This is where the “31st” stat comes from. These rankings measure:

Enrollment

Literacy

Spending

Teacher ratios

Graduation rates

System efficiency

That’s not about how smart our students are it’s about how effective our bureaucracy is. And yeah, ours is a hot mess. But that’s a systems problem, because we are decentralized. It’s not a student problem.

3. “We spend more than anyone!”

We do.

Because we’re massive we are the size of an entire continent, unequal, and decentralized to the point of dysfunction.

Want to compare?

Let’s look at some of those “top countries” from the WPR and match them to U.S. states by population:

South Korea (51M) = California + part of Texas

Denmark (6M) = Wisconsin

Netherlands (17.5M) = New York

Belgium (11.7M) = Ohio

Slovenia (2M) = Nebraska

Those countries are the size of states.

They have:

One national curriculum

One funding system

One set of laws

We have:

50 state systems

Over 13,000 school districts

No national standards

Local property tax funding, so rich zip codes thrive and poor ones drown

Some kids go to brand new schools with 3D printers and solar panels.

Others freeze through winter in buildings with leaking ceilings and no library.

Same country.

Same flag.

Two different worlds.

Of course we spend more.

We’re funding chaos.

4. “28% of grads can’t read past a 5th-grade level.”

That number? Totally made up.

It’s pulled from a misused stat of adults that has no national backing.

We do have literacy issues.

But they’re not because kids are lazy or dumb.

They’re because:

Early childhood education is optional, not guaranteed

Schools in low-income areas don’t get the same resources

Reading specialists are being cut, not hired

Many children come to school hungry, sick, or scared

Let’s stop blaming kids for failing systems.

They can’t read when the school can’t even afford books.

5. “The Department of Education is a failure.” Or maybe… you just don’t understand what it does.

Let’s be clear.

The Department of Education does not:

Choose your kid’s curriculum

Write textbooks

Approve lesson plans

Invent Common Core

Control what your school teaches

All of that? State and local control.

What the Department of Education actually does:

Enforces civil rights in education (Title IX, IDEA, disability rights, racial equity)

Sends federal funding to underfunded schools

Provides support for English learners, special ed, and rural students

Administers Pell Grants and federal student loans

Gathers data so we know what’s working (and what’s not)

You kill the DoED? You cut:

Support for kids with disabilities

Protections for non-English speakers

Funding for rural schools

Grants for low-income students

Accountability for states that are actively failing children

You hurt little kids in big ways.

6. “Let the states decide.” Newsflash: they already do.

People scream “let the states decide!” like they’re fighting for freedom.

Buddy, the states HAVE BEEN deciding.

There is no national curriculum.

There is no federal standard for what kids learn.

That’s why:

Evolution is taught in some states and questioned in others

Black history is expanded in some districts and banned in others

Some states offer world class public education… and others? Barely the basics

So if you're mad about what your kid is learning or not learning, don’t blame the DoED.

Blame your state. Blame your local school board.

Because that’s who’s in charge.

The problem isn’t too much federal control, it’s not enough support for the states that are failing their students.

7. “Other countries prep for PISA. We don’t.”

Top performing countries like Singapore and South Korea train for PISA.

They build their curriculum around it. They do mock tests. They align teaching methods with the skills the test measures.

Our kids? They show up, take it cold, and go back to class like nothing happened.

No one even explains what the test is.

And guess what?

We still came in 6th in reading.

Imagine what we could do if we actually prepared.

The real issue? They want to abolish the DoED.

Not because it failed.

But because it does things they don’t like:

It protects marginalized kids

It enforces civil rights

It sends money where states don’t want to

It holds people accountable

Getting rid of it won’t hurt your wealthy district with robotics clubs and parent-funded libraries.

It will hurt:

Disabled students

Low-income schools

Rural districts with no tax base

Immigrant kids

English learners

Students who rely on someone, anyone, to fight for them

This isn’t about shrinking government.

It’s about shrinking opportunity, shrinking equity, and letting kids fall through the cracks on purpose.

So next time someone says:

“We were better off before the Department of Education…”

Ask them for data.

They won’t have it.

But now you do.

(Everything in this post is based on real data: PISA 2022, Department of Education records, NCES, and education policy research. You want receipts? I have them.)

Edited to clarify: DOE refers to the Department of Energy, while DoED (or ED) refers to the Department of Education

[grunklebongrip]

When a fic doesn’t fit my head canons but it’s well-written

[just-french-me-up]

'ao3 needs a like and dislike button'

what you need, my algorithm-rotten minded friend, is a grip

[semperintrepida]

This is the worst timeline. (x)

[yuttikkele]

hey gamers I’ve started watching star trek does anyone else see the romantic tension between captain kirk and mr. spock

[podcastwizard]

my most toxic trait is i fucking love work gossip. i play neutral not to be the bigger person or take the high road but to hear slander and hearsay from every side. two coworkers complained about each other to me in the same afternoon and i nearly blacked out from the rush

[marvelsmostwanted]

There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice.

I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Sources:

• NBC Chicago & J.B. Pritzker, Democratic governor of Illinois, State of the State address 2025: Watch speech here | Full text

• Betches News on Instagram (screencaps)

[schrodingersbobbynash]

id: a tweet from pop tingz. "max announces the release of the 'luigi mangione: the ceo killer' documentary on february 17th."

hey! just a reminder this alleged "ceo killer" hasn't been convicted of anything, hasn't even gone to trial, was taken into custody without being dna tested or fingerprinted (what fingerprints they did find near the scene were entirely circumstantial), didn't have any contact with legal rep before his extradition hearing, and wasn't identified as a facial match by the fbi's top notch ai software. just don't watch this doc, it's bound to be full of bullshit just like tmz.

[shopwitchvamp]

Just wanted to share some shockingly good news in these difficult times. The full article is really worth reading. [Find it here]

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[autistic-dazai]

it must suck to do an assassination and have everyone cheering you on and hyping you up cuz you can’t tell anyone you did it. you have to keep that information to yourself.

[wishfulsketching]

Girl dad Silco is a source of endless entertainment for me

Extra doodles:

Someone save Sevika, she is in hell

[jakeperalta]

saw this very [ben affleck depressed smoking image] comment and thought why does blue job / pink job sound like an established concept so I looked it up.....

what's next?? having a bank account is a blue job 💙🏦☺️ not being legally recognised as a person in your own right is a pink job 🩷🥰💅

[flamboyantly-understated]

maybe this is just me idk

[howtokillavampire]

but what if i read one of your fanfics and then went to your ao3 account and read all of your fanfics and left a comment on every single chapter of every single one and you got spam emails from all of my kudos and comments and it made you smile, what then? what if i brighten your day with my words like you did mine, what then???