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GETTING RID OF THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION IS JUST THE BEGINNING
By Molly Slag, March 19, 2025

Few federal agencies warrant dissolution as much as the Department of Education. A bill in Congress to achieve just that has been introduced, the “States’ Education Reclamation Act.”

Jeffrey A. Tucker explains that the Act won’t just save taxpayers $70 billion.

"More importantly, it will return education to the states completely, which is an essential first step to fixing the whole system. The target is to return education to families and communities in both financing and control. That is the American system. Nothing else will substitute."

However, returning education to the states is not the same thing as returning it to families and communities. Dissolving the DOE does, indeed, seem to be in the cards, yet euphoria at the prospect may be exaggerated due to some wholly understandable confusion on the topic.

The central source of this confusion lies in the fact that there is no such thing as “the” Department of Education. There are 51 departments of education. Dissolving one of them leaves 50 standing.

It’s actually worse than that because there aren’t just 50 other Departments of Education. The American education system is indeed a nationwide system. The system consists of teachers, administrators, principals, superintendents, school boards, and university education departments, along with both the state and federal DOEs. That’s eight constituents. Eliminating one leaves seven standing, multiplied across 50 states.

A surprise awaits people celebrating the federal DOE’s imminent demise. The state DOEs are baby sisters of the federal DOE, with the same views and policies on education.

It is well known that “people are policy.” These eight constituents of the system are made up of people who are as alike as peas in a pod. They are all the same people supporting the same extreme leftist rainbow agenda.

Local school boards do not control local education. State statutes and state education department policies do. The role of the school board is to implement state policy and levy taxes on the local citizens.

Take a peek at your latest tax bill. You’ll note that the largest tax liability is to your local school district.

Why is this? In part, it’s because the education establishment is enraptured with “technology,” which is ultimately a costly and failing strategy:

Parents decried the alienating reality of online education and complained about the hassles of balky school websites and software. As for teachers? Sixty percent told Education Week that the biggest problem with technology was distracted students, and 80 percent said that more screen time led to worse student behavior. What’s more, the existing research makes clear that it’s hard to draw any clear relationship between technology and improved learning outcomes.

[snip]

Education requires concentration. Whether we’re talking about basketball, algebra, or the flute, learning calls for focus, engagement, and practice. That’s how students gain knowledge and master skills. Today’s digital devices and social-media algorithms, however, are increasingly optimized to be engines of distraction — to break up that kind of sustained attention.

We really need to ask: What is our goal with education? What are we trying to achieve? Is there any place in education for the computer or cell phone? For example, it is well-known that reading is the foundation of all educational success, and it is now known that paper is better than a computer screen.

Thankfully, the word about our education systems’ failures is getting out, and homeschooling is on the rise.

As for those eight constituent parts spread across 50 states, the whole system has an Achilles’ heel. The one identifiable legal nut that holds this vast system together is the statutory requirement that teachers must be state-certified. Unscrewing that nut would allow school boards to hire whomever they please and choose the qualified over the certified.

Reprinted with permission from the American Thinker: https://www.americanthinker.com

MICHIGAN REGULATORS ORDER FAMILY FISHING SPOT FILLED
Lawmaker calls for funding cuts over pond dispute
By Scott McClallen | March 27, 2025

A Michigan lawmaker wants to cut a state agency’s funding over disputes with residents.

The new oversight committee fielded many complaints about the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, said Antrim Township Republican Rep. Brian BeGole in a March 22 social media post.

“EGLE needs a lot of change and I have a feeling big budget cuts are coming for them,” BeGole wrote.

The environmental agency is trying to force one Freeland man to fill in a pond on his private property, Michigan Capitol Confidential reported in January. Two months later, his brother Zach Wenzlick shared his story with Michigan lawmakers via the House Oversight Committee on March 18. The state could fine Joshua up to $1.7 million for expanding his pond from 2020-2023.

Joshua hired Schlicht Ponds of Montrose, a licensed contractor, to excavate the pond to about 20 feet in one section. That depth is sufficient to sustain wildlife when the pond freezes over in the winter, ensuring there is enough oxygen.

Joshua stocked the pond with about 700 fish — a mix of bass, bluegill, crappie, and perch. After stocking the pond, ducks, geese, and painted turtles moved into the pond, Zach said.

But in March 2023, someone submitted an anonymous complaint about the property. State employees visited the property without notice, Zach said.

Zach said Joshua gave the environmental agency a previous ruling that the pond was a non-regulated wetland.

In June 2023, Joshua received a letter of a possible violation. The agency referred the case to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel for enforcement, Zach said.

In January 2024, Joshua received an order demanding that he restore most of the one-acre pond to 18 inches or less of water, Zach told lawmakers.

That would kill all fish in the pond when it freezes during winter.

The environmental agency says it lawfully investigated an alleged violation of Section 30314 of the Wetland Protection Act, as well as Part 301 Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act. The agency is allowed, officials said, to enter premises suspected of causing an “imminent threat to the public health or environment” or if it has reasonable cause that the wetland “is a water of the United States as that term is used in ... the federal water pollution control act.”

The family flipped vacant mining land into a pond where they fish and enjoy nature, Zach said.

“This is where we spend every 4th of July celebrating,” Zach said. “Where I wake up on Saturday mornings with my son and we go fishing with my brother.”

“All my brother has done is take previous mining wasteland and turn it into a thriving ecosystem,” Zach said.

The environmental agency hasn’t responded to a request for comment. Previously, it denied any wrongdoing.

The family has been caught in a nightmare for over a year and treated like criminals over a pond, Republican Rep. Matthew Bierlein of Vassar, said in a March 18 social media post.

“My office has stood with Zach and his family since last year as they face a situation no Michigander should ever have to endure,” Bierlein said. “This isn’t just about a pond. It’s about property rights, government accountability, and ensuring that no hardworking family is forced to defend themselves against this kind of overreach.”

Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.

TRUMP ADMIN GIVES DC HEALTH BUREAUCRATS A CHOICE: MOVE TO ALASKA OR RESIGN
Emily Kopp, Contributor, April 01, 2025

Some leaders of the many sprawling agencies and centers that make up the Department of Health and Human Services have been given a choice: Move out of DC or resign.

HHS began executing 10,000 layoffs as part of a massive restructuring of the department’s convoluted organization chart on Tuesday, according to several news reports. Thomas Nagy, deputy assistant secretary for human resources at HHS, began sending layoff notices in the early morning, immediately placing thousands of employees on administrative leave.

But some bureaucrats in leadership roles, including senior executive service members, were offered a deal: They could be retained in government service but would have to relocate to an Indian Health Service post.

For instance, Food and Drug Administration Center for Tobacco Products Director Brian King was offered a position at the Indian Health Service office, the Washington Post reported.

Some leaders of the National Institutes of Health’s 27 institutes and centers were likewise offered transfers to Indian Health Service offices like the one in Alaska and were given until Wednesday to respond, according to the Associated Press. Other Indian Health Service offices are found in cities hundreds of miles from Washington, DC, including Albuquerque, New Mexico; Bemidji, Minnesota; and Billings, Montana.

FDA Office of New Drugs Director Peter Stein was offered a reassignment to the patient affairs desk but declined, according to trade publication Endpoints News.

“I was offered a reassignment’ in ‘patient affairs’ (as they were required to do) or termination (after admin leave). I declined the offer (as ridiculous) so am on administrative leave,” Stein told the outlet.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced on March 27 that the Department of Government Efficiency would be eliminating duplicative administrative functions across the department such as human resources and media relations. The restructuring would also involve enabling the agencies’ many disparate IT systems to communicate with one another and share depersonalized health data, he announced.

A March 27 Office of Personnel Management memo revoked collective bargaining rights for several HHS divisions including the HHS Office of the Secretary, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Anthony Fauci’s former division, the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

It also revoked bargaining rights from chief information officer roles. DOGE has been operating in CIO roles.

Reprinted with permission from the Daily Caller: https://dailycaller.com/

SUNRISE SIDE REPUBLICAN WOMEN'S CLUB.

The Sunrise Side Republican Club holds monthly meetings on the 4th Tuesday of the month.  The location and speaker will be announced for each meeting.  Unless otherwise stated, the lunch will be at 11:30 a.m.

The officers are:  Jane Hayward, President, 989-739-3126, Roxanne Rosenfeld, Vice President, 989-362-1259, Amy Merrick, Secretary, 989-747-0479 and Mary Riley, Treasurer, 989-305-6302.

The SSRWC next meeting will be on May 27, 2025 at Oscoda G's Back Room.

 You can send correspondence to Mary Annette Riley, 1300 E. Lincoln, East Tawas, MI 48730.

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