Welcome to 3 and 3.

Three key facts in three minutes or less on the topics you care about most.

The Federal Department of Education.

Key fact number one.

The creation of the Federal Department of Education.

The Federal Department of Education, as we know it today, was created in 1979 under Jimmy Carter

and significantly increased the federal government's role in funding public education.

Prior to the department's founding, the federal government largely played an advisory role,

while the funding itself for public education came almost entirely from state and local governments.

Key fact number two. The total cost of the Department of Education.

In total, the Federal Department of Education has spent approximately $2 trillion since its inception,

not accounting for inflation.

As a matter of fact, today, the Department of Education's discretionary budget is the third largest

of the federal government, surpassed only by the Department of Defense and the Department

of Health and Human Services.

Key fact number three, the net results. In spite of the trillions of dollars in federal spending,

the results of students in standardized testing

have remained almost entirely unchanged since 1979

when the Department of Education was founded.

Even more troubling, newer data emerging today shows a negative trend, with standardized math scores at their lowest since 1990, and reading scores at their lowest since 2004.

This has been three in three.

I'm Stephen Crowder.

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