For the Historically atrophied Left, the entire department, a well as the Cabinet level position were both formed in 1978 by Jimmah Cahtah as payola to the NEA and teachers' unions nationwide for their 1976 endorsement. Since then, Educational performance has been circling the toilet bowl with no end in sight.
Ebonics, Outcome-Based Education, Common Core, NCLB, etc. Standards keep right on getting lowered and lowered. Now with the uptick in homeschooling, charter school enrollment (bear in mind Charters are very much public schools, but with much higher standards for both student AND teacher accountability), and the push for vouchers (which BTW I support), the Left has a boogeyman-school choice. Both the Education department AND Cabinet level Secretary need to be shitcanned and full 100% control of the schools need to be returned to the local and state level.