Penna Dexter
The Department of Education is not needed. More evidence surfaced recently in results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, given to 4th and 8th graders every two years. Average NAEP scores in both grades are down 2 points since 2022. A third of eighth graders scored “below basic” in reading, a record low. And math scores continue to drop. The money we throw at the problem is not helping.
President Trump supports abolishing the Department of Education. Since only Congress can shut it down, advisors are debating the specifics of an executive order. The Wall Street Journal learned that the order is expected to “shut down all functions of the agency that aren’t written explicitly into statute” and “move certain functions to other departments.”
The order would also call on Congress to develop legislation to abolish the department. House Education Committee Chair Tim Walburg (R-Michigan), supports doing so, but expects Senate resistance. A recent Wall Street Journal poll shows 61 percent of registered voters want the department’s funding protected.
Betsy De Vos, Secretary of Education during President Trump’s first term wrote, “I can say conclusively that American students will be better off without.”
In an article for The Free Press, Secretary DeVos says she found, during her tenure, that “the Department of Education has almost nothing to do with educating anyone.”
Last year, Congress appropriated nearly $80 billion for education. Mrs. DeVos says, upon receipt of funds, the department‘s bureaucrats ”add strings and red tape, peel off a percentage to pay for themselves, and then send it down to state education agencies.” She recommends that Congress eliminate the middleman and send education funding straight to the states and schools as a block grant.
She says Congress should pass Universal School Choice — giving parents more authority.
Enforcing civil rights law should be shifted to the Department of Justice. And student loans should go to the banks.
Then, close the department’s doors.

Kerby Anderson
Mexico has been in the news because of issues ranging from immigration to tariffs. Victor Davis Hanson wonders whether Mexico is a friend or enemy or something else. He raises some good questions that often are ignored when the media talks about our neighbor to the south.
Immigration and border security are the first issue. He argues that “Mexico seems to assume that it has a sovereign right to encourage the flight of millions of its own impoverished citizens illegally into the US and further assumes that it can fast-track millions of Latin Americans through its territory and across our border.”
Drugs are a second issue. He observes that “Mexico either cannot or will not address the billions of dollars of raw fentanyl products shipped in—mostly from China—and then processed for export to the U.S. by its cartels across a nonexistent border.”
He reminds us that some 75,000 Americans on average die of fentanyl each year. This is more deaths in just the last decade than all the Americans killed in action during World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined.
Finally, he reports that “Mexico encourages its expatriate illegal aliens to send back some $63 billion per year in remittances. That huge sum constitutes one of Mexico’s largest sources of foreign exchange, surpassing even its tourist and oil revenues.”
You can read his column in its entirety and learn more about the past president of Mexico and the current one. Some of these issues explain why the leadership in Mexico has been unwilling and perhaps unable to deal with the border issues between the US and Mexico.
Perhaps now you can see why President Trump believed he had to resort to other means to get compliance.

Kerby Anderson
America keeps spending more and more money on public education. And all those tax dollars don’t seem to make a difference. Schools keep flunking.
The National Assessment for Educational Progress is often referred to as “America’s Report Card.” But this isn’t a report card you would want to show anyone. The latest report shows that fourth and eighth grade reading scores declined by two points on average since 2022. Even more concerning is the fact that a third (33%) of eighth graders scored below “basic” on the reading exam. That is a record low. Math scores for eighth graders were eight points lower than in 2019.
Also, concerning was evidence that the achievement gap has increased. High math performers in both grades scored better last year while low performers did worse or the same. Test scores for students scoring in the upper percentiles in reading improved since 1992, but they declined for students in the lower percentiles.
The reasons for this decline don’t take an expert. But the Wall Street Journal editors quoted an education expert at Harvard who talked about three problems: “student mental-health problems, less test-based accountability and increasing screen time.”
The head of a teacher’s union suggested that schools need smaller class sizes, good ventilation, and 21st-century technology. The editors responded, “Sorry, children aren’t doing worse because of bad air filters or old computers. They scored better without 21st-century technology.”
Public schools are flunking. That’s why educational choice is a hot topic today in many states so that parents can take their tax dollars to better schools. And that’s why more parents are looking at private schools, Christian schools, and homeschooling.