Watch — PragerU CEO Marissa Streit Explains Why Department of Education Must Be ‘Shut Down’

PragerU CEO Marissa Streit explained that the Department of Education “exists as a slush fund for the teachers unions and the educational elite, and as a laboratory for social experimentation on our kids,” and why it needs to be shut down.

In 1979, then-President Jimmy Carter, whose “approval ratings had plummeted to a dismal 28 percent,” established the Department of Education because “he needed all the friends he could get” ahead of the 1980 election, Streit explained in a new video titled “Do We Need the Department of Education?” for PragerU’s 5 Minute Videos series.

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“And there was no better friend than the largest labor union in the country, the National Education Association,” the PragerU CEO said of why Carter chose to create the Department of Education.

Notably, the National Education Association had been calling for a Department of Education for decades, without success.

“No one besides the teachers unions thought it was necessary,” Streit said, adding that once the labor union got what it wanted, it was handed “a big budget,” the ability to “threaten local schools: ‘Adopt this program or you won’t get federal dollars,’ and a big bureaucracy which they could fill with their loyalists.”

Before 1979, the American public education system was almost entirely managed by state and local governments “and widely acknowledged as the best in the world,” but “almost half a century later, no one can make that claim,” the PragerU CEO pointed out.

“Right now, the United States is ranked 28th in the world in math, and 36th in literacy,” Streit said. “One in four eighth graders lacks a basic proficiency in math. One in three are not reading at grade level. Only 13 percent are proficient in U.S. history.”

“It’s not a money problem,” she continued, adding that most recent numbers show “the United States spends $17,000 per student,” and in Chicago, where the public education system is particularly bad, “it’s $29,000.”

Streit asserted that American public schools went “from outstanding to embarrassing” in large part due to the Department of Education not only failing to help students, but actually making things worse.

“It wasn’t for lack of money,” the PragerU CEO said, noting that last year, “the department’s budget was $268 billion.”

As for where all that money is going, most of it “goes to hiring more school administrators, counselors, and their assistants,” Streit said.

The Department of Education’s “employees, almost all Democrats, make a very good living,” with a large chunk of them — over 2,500 staffers — “making well over $100,000 a year,” the PragerU CEO revealed.

Moreover, “The department dispenses about $80 billion into schools across the country for educationally questionable initiatives like teacher development, diversity training, critical theory studies, and climate change awareness,” Streit added.

“From its inception, the Department of Education was a political institution,” the PragerU CEO said, asserting “It was never intended to help students,” but to help the Democrat Party and the unions.

In return for being handed all those perks, “Democrats get the votes,” Streit added, pointing out that the National Education Association “has endorsed every Democratic presidential nominee since Carter.”

Another perk the union boasts via the Department of Education is the ability to “push their ideas on America’s youth,” Streit said.

One example the PragerU CEO cited was the Department of Education recently giving Framingham State University $1.3 million to write a single textbook for high school students to learn about “the evolving definition of family through socially constructed and ecological theory frameworks.”

“Name something radical happening in our schools, like boys competing against girls in sports, and the Department of Education has been behind it,” Streit declared.

Therefore, “There is only one viable solution” for the Department of Education, Streit concluded, which is to “shut it down.”

Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.