The US Department of Education's Mission Statement is now useless

The dismantling of the US Department of Education (USDOE), along with lingering Covid-19 issues (i.e., lack of student focus, behavior, and attendance) combined with long-standing drill-and-kill curriculum, dwindling funding, and blatant anti-democratic political agendas, have left public education professionals on life support.
 
Educators work harder now with much less; have testing agendas that waste valuable instruction time; are forced to make almost impossible budget decisions, and are scapegoated if student populations don’t improve scores or attendance. Granted, there’s never enough funding in any public sphere of endeavor, health care being a primary example, but the profession has been degraded, much to the heartbreak of many teachers who are unwilling to walk away. Morale is low and many leave—to no one’s surprise. Who can they turn to for help? Sadly, not the US Department of Education.
 
A quick look at the USDOE’s mission statement reads well in theory, but delivers nothing to improve practice other than to fund programs that might help schools and individual student growth, mainly in the form of grants that expire over time. The first USDOE mission statement bullet, “Strengthen the Federal commitment to assuring access to equal educational opportunity for every individual;” is manifestly violated by those leaders who discriminate against students based on their ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, skin color, or disability. Unfortunately, too, there’s no listing of authentic, tangible best teaching practices which teachers could meaningly use in their day-to-day.
 
Instead, the USDOE relies on academic research, and has no mission agenda with any specificity. It’s all guidelines and theory, without any real meaningful practice catalogued. Any wonder why over the years curriculum and political agendas have changed like the wind?
 
So truly, why would academics and politicos keep shifting the goal posts? It's because they haven’t found a solid curriculum demonstrating school success on the ground level: the classroom and the school. Their mission statement doesn’t reflect how classrooms should successfully operate, but in fact, only creates confusion and frustration. They keep aiming for targets, but not the best ways to shoot.
 
In my next post, I will write about what can a teacher, principal, or parent do to ensure their child, student, teacher, or school is on the right path. Oh, and how’s this for a federal mission statement?
 
The US Department of Education is committed to identifying best practices in all areas of instruction, and in social, emotional and behavioral methods by identifying, verifying, and cataloging authentic programs and practices demonstrated to improve school and student performance in all areas of need.
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