Is This the End of the Department of Education? – Top 3 Takeaways – March 21st, 2025

The Department of Education wasn’t designed to enhance education.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the Brian Mud Show. Thanks for listening. Passion
plus talent is unstoppable. It's time for today's Top three takeaways.
Happy for Friday, Happy Friday. You know what's a happier Friday?
One where we're talking about the potential end of the
Department of Education. Oh yeah, so is this the end

(00:30):
of the Department of Education? My top three takeaways for
you on this Friday. My top one is one of
the most important days in American history. You know, for
many people, the most exciting thing that happened yesterday involved
their brackets and their bets on the NCAA tournament. It's
all good, But for some of us, one of the
most exciting moments of all time happened off a basketball

(00:55):
court while many of the games happen to be in
full swing. Signing of an executive order aimed at ending
the US Department of Education just one word, an executive
order aimed at ending the US Department of Education. I
think I love you is one of the most important

(01:17):
moments of your or my lifetime. There is no issue
that I have spent more time addressing during my career
than education. There's no federal government department I'd rather see disbanded.
And that's for one very simple reason. The Department of Education,

(01:41):
no matter all the nonsense you hear it out there,
all grants, oh loans, oh this, oh that bull crap,
it's proven to be the most destructive department in American history.
Assuming we all agree that education is foundationally important to
our society, if we can at least all agree on

(02:03):
that the single greatest detriment to the best interest of
educating our kids derives from the US Department of Education.
As have illustrated as recently as this week, our country
has been stuck on stupid or at least ignorance anyway

(02:23):
for decades. The United States currently ranks thirty first for
education around the world. Thirty first. We were second in
education at the time the creation of the Department of
Education in nineteen eighty and from the jump, the US
Department of Education wasn't just an unnecessary detriment to education

(02:44):
in this country. It was a Democrat devised way to
indoctrinate and infiltrate their agendas into schools. In nineteen seventy nine,
Democrats retained complete control of the federal government, and they
used it to establish it department that would supersede the
authority of state and local education departments. As you get

(03:05):
all these these local people, these news organizations, these yeah,
I love it. How war's their news media? Do they
go to the teachers Union for there? Boy? I got
something about that. See that, I've talked a lot about this.
And even if you have heard me talk about the
Department of Education for almost the entirety of my career, Hey,

(03:29):
thank you for having listen that long. B I've never
told you. I'm getting ready to tell you it's very important.
No matter what they say, all the Department has ever
done is superseded the authority of state and local education departments.
Because any money that goes down to the schools, they

(03:53):
pull all the strings on. They tell states, they tell
local districts what can and can be, or they won't
get that money. You see in the Department of Education Act,
it is stated that the first purpose of this Act
is to quote strengthen the federal commitment to ensuring access
to equal educational opportunity for every individual. Now, what that

(04:18):
came to mean was that rather than the education bar
in this country being raised to say the highest standards
of the best performing state no, no, no, we go
the other way. The bar was lowered to the lowest
common denominator, often in the name of what equality. We
got to be equal here. Remember, we can't lead children behind.

(04:39):
And this was established through many mechanisms tied to federal
funding and measured through the implementation of standardized testing. While
DEI is something that was proliferated by the left in
recent years, the origins of it from a public policy standpoint,
they were rooted in the founding state of the US

(05:00):
Department of Education. It was literally founded on the basis
of DEI and most of all, pushing it through federal
policies and education regulations into all of the states. This
meant the end of any religious references, prayers, or holidays
a law. The advent of winter break just happens to

(05:24):
coincide with Christmas, but it's winter break with the implementation
of DEI related policies and the elimination of any religious
references for forty five years, what's happened while education in
this country has gone in one direction compared to our peers,
It's gone down. While mental health and substance abuse issues,

(05:47):
what's happened there? Oh, they've gone in one direction as well,
up over three hundred plus percent according to Harvard's findings.
Now you don't have to be like a whiz you know, PhD.
Since we're talking, you'll have to be a whispering a PhD.
Somebody who couldn't do so they spent their entire life

(06:08):
in the classroom got a big certificate for it. Sorry. Actually,
I have very good friends that are PhDs. They're not pinheads,
it's just that many are. But my point is you
don't have to be a PhD to know that if
you've gone from second to thirty first in education outcomes

(06:29):
while also seeing a greater than three hundred percent increase
and mental health and substance abuse issues at the same time,
since you implemented this department, it hasn't gone well. And Joel,
would you say it's gone well? No, I think it's
an understatement to say it hasn't gone well. Okay, but
these facts don't matter. You never hear. There's nobody that

(06:53):
talks about these facts the way I do. I don't.
I don't understand, not even people on the right. And
in granted, I mean I've done so much research, so
much work on this over the years I'm called in
as an expert in some circles to present this material,
but in just it is so black and white. But
that's again only one piece. It's only one piece. See,

(07:15):
it's a little surprise that if you eradicate educationally the
single most important principles of life, an opportunity for faith, morality,
while also lowering the educational bar in the name of quality,
we're all equal now that you're going to produce the

(07:36):
failed results we've seen. So despite the overall and overwhelming
facts demonstrating the catastrophic failures of the Department of Education,
many will still argue that the failures, they're not the
Department's fault. They're not. They do very important work, don't
you know? They aid our schools, aid our kids. Except

(07:57):
not only is that not true, but it was actually
never true. It was never true. And that's because here
is something that I have never brought you in any capacity,
but is worth the conversation at this stage in the game.
Did you know why the US Department of Education was created?
Do you know how it was created? Did you know

(08:20):
that the Department of Education wasn't actually designed to enhance education?
Do you know what it was designed? To do. It
was designed for the benefit of teachers unions. That's right,
it was designed for the benefit of teachers unions. This

(08:41):
is my second takeaway today. Fun fact. Did you know
that the US Department of Education wasn't Jimmy Carter's idea,
nor was it the idea of any members of Congress,
and most certainly didn't come from the grassroots. So where
did it come from the NA? Yeah, that's right. The

(09:02):
largest teachers union of them all, the National Education Association,
is the entity that pressed for the establishment of the
US Department of Education. The union had been demanding that
a cabinet level position be created for education, and in
the nineteen seventy six presidential election cycle you had Jimmy
Carter then made the campaign promise to the NEA to

(09:27):
to do so, to go ahead and create this thing,
to secure the union's endorsement and to get the pledge
of teachers votes. Never before had the NEA endorsed the
presidential candidate, but they did on the basis of Carter's promise,
which with the vote in nineteen seventy nine, he delivered on. Now,

(09:47):
the irony of the US Department of Education isn't just
another failed government agency. It's that it was literally established
for the benefit of teachers unions, not that of parents
and students. And in that sense it's been wildly successful,
as the NEA and AFT have effectively influenced all education

(10:09):
policies since its inception, right down to getting the federal
government to reverse its stance on reopening schools during the pandemic.
Remember that already to go ahead and give the blessing
on reopening schools, and then you got no, no, no, no,
Randy Weingarn, the AFT head of every teachers union in
the state of Florida, the parent no, we don't want

(10:32):
to do that. And so then the government reverses. The
Department of Education succeeded in doing what it was always
designed to do, serve the political interests of the teachers unions,
not you. That is a big lie. So now that
President Trump has signed the executive order calling for an

(10:55):
end to the Department of Education, what happens, Well, here's
what the Trump administration can do. My third takeaway for
you today. What the Trump administration can't do without a
vote by Congress that would require least sixty votes in
the Senate, meaning the support of several Democrats is fully
eliminate the Department of Education. What the Trump administration can do, however,

(11:19):
is effectively cripple the department and its DEEI enforcement mechanisms. Basically,
if the administration eliminates most of the positions within the
Department of Education and closes offices within the department as well,
I mean, there's a little bit of like a tree
falling in the forest effect in play. And that's only
a half measure. To be sure, the next measure that

(11:41):
can take place for Congress to defund the Department of Education.
And the current fiscal year that runs through September, the
Department of Education received two hundred and sixty eight billion
dollars in federal funding. By the way, in reading your
goddless souls and slenders news media on this stuff, I
love I love saying it's a it's a relatively small

(12:02):
department or a very small I've seen these characterizations. Very
small department within the federal government. It doesn't even have,
you know, much of a footprint in the federal government.
Two hundred and sixty eight billion dollars is not a
big deal anymore. Annually, you're you're serious. So, as part

(12:23):
of President Trump's desired big, the luptious sexy Jill likes
likes the bil Second, he very very delivery, very direct
of you can't imagine, let me not imagine what goes
on outside of legislative buck Yeah. Yeah, So the big

(12:48):
beautiful bill that Republicans can defund. Within that bill the Department,
and they can do it with a simple Republican majority
reconciliation vote. And if that were to happen, the Department
wouldn't literally exist, but I mean it effectively wouldn't. And bonus,

(13:09):
take a look at that two hundred and sixty eight
billion dollars in annualized savings right there too. They got
a long way for those achieving its cost savings goals,
which also are an important part of President Trump being
able to deliver on his tax cut plans. Twenty one
states have already sued trying to stop the Trump administration
for what they've already been doing to shrink the signs

(13:31):
to the Department of Education. More are likely to be
filed now. But those are the things that the Trump
administration can do and that in the end, no lawsuits
could put an end to