President Biden’s Department of Education has turned the noble mission of teaching America’s children into a $1 billion slush fund for woke diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) schemes. According to a report from Parents Defending Education (PDE), a conservative organization dedicated to fighting back against progressive indoctrination in schools, the department has spent hundreds of millions of dollars since 2021 on DEI hiring sprees, programming, and mental health initiatives. Meanwhile, America’s students continue to lag in global rankings.
PDE’s deep dive into federal grants uncovered that the Education Department, with its bloated $238 billion budget for fiscal year 2024, allocated nearly half a billion dollars to DEI hiring alone. Another $343 million was burned on DEI programs, while $170 million went to mental health efforts tied to woke ideologies. Instead of prioritizing math, science, and literacy, it seems Biden’s bureaucrats are more interested in making sure every school administrator can recite the latest social justice slogans.
One glaring example of this waste comes from Montgomery County Schools, which received a $21.5 million grant to train teachers on “equitable instructional and disciplinary practices.” Translation? Teach teachers to see racism everywhere. Over in Ypsilanti, Michigan, taxpayers shelled out nearly $20,000 for a one-day workshop led by a DEI consultant—who, naturally, pocketed another $19,250 for copies of their book.
And then there’s the School District of Philadelphia, which got $4 million to fund a restorative justice program featuring none other than Fania Davis, sister of radical leftist Angela Davis. That’s right, your tax dollars at work, propping up someone connected to the Communist Party.
President-elect Donald Trump has already signaled his intention to bring this nonsense to a screeching halt. In his Time “Person of the Year” interview, he called for a “virtual” shutdown of the Department of Education, which has been a magnet for bureaucratic waste since its creation in 1979. Trump’s appointment of Linda McMahon to lead the department is a clear sign he plans to prioritize efficiency and return to basics—unlike Biden, who seems intent on turning schools into factories for social engineering.
The reality is glaring. American students ranked a dismal 18th globally in the most recent Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test, and nearly one-third of public school children are underperforming grade-level expectations. But Biden’s Department of Education is too busy funding woke summer camps and equity training to notice.
Trump’s plan to streamline government, led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy as heads of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), promises to target this kind of waste head-on. Conservatives have long called for axing the Department of Education, a dream that dates back to Ronald Reagan. If Trump’s team can’t kill it outright, they’ll at least starve the woke beast.
