Plenty of media bobble-heads and left-leaning pundits began hyperventilating when it was announced that President-elect Donald Trump has tapped billionaire businessman Elon Musk and Republican also-ran Vivek Ramaswamy to run the new Department of Government Efficiency.
Normally, we would join the chorus in opposition to the idea of shrinking government bureaucracy by creating yet another government bureaucracy; however, in this case, we feel this is precisely the medicine the doctor ordered.
Musk has indicated that the Department of Education will be among the first fat-laden block of meat to get the scalpel, which shows to us that the priorities, at least for now, are in the right place.
The reason we have state and local school boards and commissions is rooted deeply in the Constitution. The text reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Local school boards constantly complain they are hamstrung by the federal department, which uses funding as both a carrot to institute wildly inappropriate subject matter and a guillotine over common sense public-private partnerships.
Augusta Tech has blazed a trail with partnering with private entities to place “private know-how” and real world experience in the classroom; the partnerships with Augusta National and Jim Hudson Automotive Group are just two examples of that kind of success.
This is now filtering down to the elementary level where Martinez Elementary has partnered with Club Car to apply the production of golf carts with science, technology, engineering and mathematics training in the classroom.
What kid hasn’t doodled the image of their version of a race car on the back of their notebook? With this program, the kids are encouraged to doodle towards possible innovation, using their creativity while learning of the interdisciplinary skills needed to produce a modern vehicle.
The annual project begins during the fall semester when students formulate ideas for vehicle features, and culminates toward the end of the school year as they competitively pitch their ideas Shark Tank-style to Club Car engineers and leaders – last year’s winning feature was a red light option for Club Car vehicles to protect turtles while driving along the beach.
Detractors of downsizing the federal Department of Education actually say this will give the federal government more control over school curriculum and that is simply not true. This country is not likely to change the amount of money spent on education any time soon; rather, giving more financial power with fewer purse strings to state and local boards means that more of that money will make it into the classroom.
So far, we agree with the creation of DOGE, we think it is a good idea; unless, that is, unless it, too, becomes redundant.
