While it’s not the largest departmental budget in Washington, approximately $73 billion was appropriated to the United States Department of Education last calendar year. With more than 5,000 employees on hand, one would think that the department could achieve noticeable improvements in public education across the country. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
    
A 419-page report released by the department in the weeks leading up to President Donald Trump’s inauguration admitted that several of the initiatives funded by the Obama administration resulted in little to no positive impact for the schools and districts they were intended
to improve.
    
Totaling more than $7 billion, the School Improvement Grants first introduced under President George W. Bush were meant to assist low-performing schools. After the publication of this report, it’s clear that this was just another instance of throwing funds at a problem without proper implementation
and planning.
    
After championing No Child Left Behind in his first term, President Bush will forever be known for his legacy of increased standardized testing and accountability standards. President Obama only added to this waste, with annual spending jumping from $600 million to nearly $3.5 billion after the stimulus package was enacted.
    
I’m hopeful that President Trump will end this sort of useless spending across the board in the federal government. Having already reduced the size of contracts with Boeing and Lockheed Martin as well as refusing to take a salary personally, the president is just in his infancy of saving taxpayer money.
    
Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s pick for education secretary, has faced many questions surrounding her qualifications to serve in such a capacity. While I don’t personally believe that she is fit to guide one of the world’s largest education systems, this type of report only fuels Trump’s motives for appointing her. He is looking for cabinet picks that will run their respective departments efficiently, with reduced waste, and that’s exactly what she will bring to the table.
    
It’s an absolute disgrace that billions of dollars in taxpayer funds were wasted on a program that produced no results. Such funding could have gone a long way in public schools had the administration ensured there was proper implementation and that the right people were in place to oversee and conduct
said implementation.
    
It’s time for the Department of Education to get serious about helping students in public schools, to ensure that projects of such fiscal proportions are carried out properly and
achieve results.