Step one would be to take the budget for the Department of Education, which is currently a little over $5 billion, but instead of having that money go to school districts have all that money go directly to the students. Take the number of K-12 school age kids, divide the $5 billion by that number which then becomes the amount of the individual grant to the parents of the child. They can use the grant on their child's education and education related expenses for that year (books, school uniforms, laptop, etc.).
Parents would be able to get their children out of failing schools and into schools where their child would be safe with greater chances of success. If the parent(s) decide to homeschool - the grant amount would be cut in half (with the idea that the school facility wouldn't be subsidized). Even at half - the grant for homeschoolers should be more than what they get today.
The grant amount would be increased each year depending on that year's CPI and the Department of Education budget would be based upon the total number of school age children. In years with more children - the budget goes up. In years with fewer children - the budget goes down.
Step two - all grants to parents would be cross-referenced against their tax returns to ensure only the parents claiming dependent children get access to the funds. This would be to help reduce fraud which is rampant in our government system.
Step three would be to allow parents to take any grant money not used that year and have those funds deposited into a special Department of Education 503c account to be used for the child's college or continuing education after high school graduation. This would help reduce overall education costs by making schools compete to be cost effective for parents who want their child to succeed and who want that college fund to be as large as possible.
If the child did not go on to college or continuing education - the funds would be removed from the 503c account and used to pay down the national debt.
Teachers' unions will hate the idea because it takes federal funds out of their hands and puts it directly into the hands of parents (who greatly outnumber teachers as far as a voting block is concerned if only they could only organize). There may actually be even more and better teaching jobs available because of the change. Plus colleges should support the proposition because they would be the main beneficiaries of those Department of Education 503c funds.
Problem solved. What do you think?
$5B? Biden's proposed FY 2023 budget calls for $185,629,000,000 - 185.6 billion - for DOE.
Try this: Assuming the Dems and Rinos will fund it until the sun burns out, shut it down BUT fund it for 1 more year and lock down employee head count.. Anyone can leave for any reason, no one can be hired or transfer in. On Oct 1 - the legal date for having Congressionally appropriated funds to spend - every existing employee gets an equal share of the budget dollars after fixed expenses (building rent, office equipment leases, etc.) are paid AND exemption from all federal taxes until Dec 31 of the third full year after agency abolishment; that's 39 months. Signing the receipt for the severance check is also signing a DOU for a lifetime ban on receiving any remuneration (look it up) from the federal government except for salary, benefit and retirement commensurate with rank in the active duty US military.
Divide 55K employees into $124.5B (2/3 of the $186,629B budget remaining after paying fixed and shut down costs and the cost of demoing the building and planting grass where it stood) and each employee gets $2.26M tax free and no federal taxes of any kind for 39 months. It would be hard to complain about that (although I'm certain some lefties, somewhere, would). We get rid of a worthless agency that never should have existed in the first place for the price of one year's budget. I'd say that would be cheap and a good deal.
If the fed dot gov just HAS to spend the money because they're in the habit, 1% of the 2023 DOE budget is $1.86B; divided by 144K school age kids (K-12) is $13K/child. Send 33% to each kid annually as a "primary and secondary education voucher," reserve the rest as "college scholarship funds for performing students" ("performing student" = GPA 3.0 and greater during a constantly "rolling window" of 3 consecutive semesters) in STEM degree programs and abolish all other federal education funding, especially fed-guaranteed higher ed loans. Have those monies adminstered by STATE agencies, not a single federal fingerprint ever lands on them.
Anon 2