Shooting Fish in a Dept. of Ed. Barrel

So I was going to make a blog posting and "shoot fish in a barrel" and do a dry sarcastic posting on Obama's ebola policy. However, first I thought it was my responsibility to first peruse the government blogs and laugh at the under the radar obscurity since I have not done anything original for quite a while. The first blog post I went to for absurdity is the Department of Education. They did not disappoint.

Let us start with the title of the blog post I encountered.
Investing in Evidence: Funding Game-Changing Evaluations

I was sooooooo drawn to this because of the title. I read it like this:

Investing in Evidence:
Funding Game,
Changing Evaluations

But it is really supposed to be read as:

Investing in Evidence
Funding <GameChanging> Evaluations

Hopefully you can see my initial misunderstanding; especially since I had had a drink.

So yes, from here on it is a drunken post, but it doesn't mean I can not make more sense than the Department of Education.

Let us move on into the post.

The Congressionally enacted Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014 allows the Department to strengthen the impact of our evaluation work by pooling resources across Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) programs. This makes it possible to fund rigorous evaluations of individual Federal education programs that currently lack sufficient evaluation dollars, and to evaluate the impact of various strategies that cut across a wide range of ESEA programs.

Year after year more money has gone to education and performance has gone down. We are told we need to give more money for education. However, this paragraph eludes that we can scrape money from this system like fat from a skinned rattlesnake for flavoring to fund a new study.

Really?

There's enough fat in the bone dry education system to fund a survey?

O.K. What's the survey?

Specifically, we are asking your help to identify what the most pressing education policy and/or practice questions are and how answering them could provide needed information to educators, parents and local, state, and federal governments to enable significant improvements in education. Our goal is to support the development of findings that have the rigor and power to inform significant improvements in how schools, districts, states, and the federal government provide services to students. We are seeking public input on the following questions:

So far the two quoted paragraphs go to a centralized point of decision. This is central planning. The thousands in Mississippi and millions in New York, the thousands in Missouri and the millions in California, speak their voice, supposedly.

All because school choice is bad.

So, let us move on to the questions.

What are the most critical P-12 questions that are still unanswered?

Are you f**king kidding me!? Aren't you supposed to be the experts taking our money telling us what is the best for education!? Aren't you the ones berating us for advocating for school choice? What the f**k is wrong with you!? Unanswered questions!?

How's this for unanswered questions!?

Why the f**k aren't you teaching times tables?

Why the f**k does simple subtraction take several steps in Common Core?

Why the f**k do you misinterpret the second amendment in Common Core?

Why the f**k do our students score high in self esteem but low in grade scores against other countries?

Why the f**k do you deserve a single penny of our tax dollars you dumb f**ks?

[compose thyself for the next question]

How could answering these questions provide information that could be used by schools, districts, and States to improve student outcomes for all students and/or particular groups of students?

[in a calm voice] I am glad you did not take the solution to the centralized federal level. This in general illustrates a problem with the educational system in that centralized planning devalues the need of local needs. To more properly answer the questions we need to answer local needs.

What type of study could answer these questions and produce findings that are reliable and generalizable?

[in a slightly irritable voice] What the f**k do you mean? We don't need a study for what is needed for our industries. And generalizable? What the f**k of major issues in our state is generalizable with the major issues of another state across the country? Why the f**k are we giving you money to homogenize states with incompatible interests!?

What implications would these findings have for existing practices, policies, and federal programs? Please mention the specific practices, policies, and programs by name if possible.

[uncontained outrage]
Oh my F**KING GOD! 50 different states with 50 different needs and you want me to describe how centralizing our interests and needs against 49 disparate ones will affect me? Can you do the math on that!?

Probably the f**k not but you might have learned the proper emoticon to express your disappointment in that!