Trump and DeVos Want To Shrink The Dept. Of Education

A few years I realized that I understand basically nothing about public policy. Sowell is great on this, arguing that "intellectuals" basically adopt the liberal/progressive world view, and then apply its generalities ignorantly. I'm rather inclined to think that he's onto something there. So I realize that I don't understand much about education policy...but...from my acknowledged state of ignorance...this sounds like a good suggestion to me. I've come to think of Ed as, basically, a department of progressive propaganda. Since Catherine Lehman's Dear Colleague letter fiasco, I've noticed that I hardly ever hear of Ed doing anything that sounds prima facie good. Ed schools are notorious at universities for basically two things: (a) political correctness and (b) low standards. DeVos seems to me to be a good secretary of education largely because she's an outsider. Seems like Ed, like ed schools, is so eaten up with quasi-religious ideology that a smart, competent outsider is about an order of magnitude better than someone from inside the church. Shrinking the whole operation sounds like a good idea...it might be better yet to get rid of the whole thing...

   But I don't really know because I really have no idea what the nuts-and-bolts, day-to-day work of the department of education is like. As Sowell notes, it's easy to make sweeping pronouncements favoring radical change when you don't actually know the details of how something works.