Welcome to another episode of Sidelined Sanity with me, Michelle Tofoya.

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I've made it very clear that I am a daughter of a public school teacher.

My mom taught for most of her life in the public schools.

And I admired her greatly for that.

I'm also not afraid to tell you that she's very disheartened with what she sees in public schools today.

It's interesting. With the United States of America and each state is supposed to be a lab of ideas that other states can use if they see it working or say,

no, that didn't work very well over there in Vermont. We're not going to use that. And I just say Vermont because it was the first state that came to mind. Okay,

so don't make any assumptions that I'm down talking Vermont. I'm not. Here's the point.

The federal government got involved in public education in 1980 when it formed the Department of Education. The Department

of Education, the federal government finances about 8 to 10 percent of public education, right?

So that means the rest of the funding comes from the states, the localities, et cetera.

But for only funding 10 percent%, they have a sort of an outsized influence on what gets taught,

what is attached to that money, et cetera, et cetera.

So should the Department of Education still exist?

I mean, we're not doing so well as a nation with our public education. And that's

becoming clear and clear every day. Should it just go away? Should that be part of the

administrative state that we say, you know what, don't need it? And how do we make that happen?

These are all really interesting questions that we're going to discuss with

Sherry Few. She is the founder of U.S. Pi, and that stands for United States parents involved

in education. She believes parents should have more of a say in what their teachers are learning.

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