https://www.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/1j6p8mb/the_mental_gymnastics_is_infuriating/
created by Synchwave1 on 08/03/2025 at 19:46 UTC*
2661 upvotes, 36 top-level comments (showing 25)
I was with a bunch of friends/wives last night. We’re in the northeast, so our Trump people tend to fly under the radar. One with a hidden, but evident MAGA slant was pontificating about the DOE, and his utopia for education. He starts spouting reading / math, then work readiness programs.
So I let him talk, then said “Steve, you realize we have all that in place right?” He just looked at me confused. I said within a 5 mile radius of where we’re standing I can learn to become a plumber, electrician, welder, turf specialist, construction worker, carpenter, early childhood specialist or aqua science (I’m on the east coast).
He said “oh they have all that”. I said sure do. He said good. I said it was great until you mouth breathers decided eliminating the DOE was a good idea and now how title 1 funding gets dispersed to the states is likely to change. He does the usual conservative gymnastics of blah blah blah. I said think of what I just said to you….. everything you think needed to solve the education problems of this country are in place and partially funded by the DOE.
So where did you independently come up with the idea that it was a failed system and should be eliminated? We’re doing EXACTLY what you want.
Fiance thought it best we leave shortly thereafter
Comment by Latter_Leopard8439 at 08/03/2025 at 19:59 UTC
1340 upvotes, 5 direct replies
This. My New England blue state has a highly popular state run tech schools system.
The southern HS I went to in a state that has turned very red has no such thing and also has cut most of your wood shop type classes a long time ago.
Redhats love pooping on college and holding up the trades and yell about bringing back votech training but I aways see little effort in moving in that direction.
Comment by smilesmoralez at 08/03/2025 at 20:19 UTC
416 upvotes, 4 direct replies
There's a huge disparity of knowledge on what the DOE does. Liberals in education understand the far reaching benefits of the agency past reading/math scores. We see the faults but the positives far outweigh the negatives. Conservatives in education see it in the inverse. Both sides advocate to their family and friends. Unfortunately, antiDOE has the full weight of conservative media, both social and traditional, as well as the full support of all 3 branches of our government. AntiDOE people don't need any facts or information. On the contrary, anything that goes against the narrative they're bombarded with will make them dig their heels in deeper. Make no mistake, we're pretty fucked.
Comment by srone at 08/03/2025 at 21:16 UTC
66 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I went to a vocational high school on the east coast in the 80s. You pick a trade and every other week you spend ALL day hands on in your trade and the next week you take academics, with the science class replaced by learning the theory of your chosen trade. We had a full machine shop, print shop, nursing, plumbing, computers...the list goes on. It was in a poor area so I'm sure there was considerable Title I funding.
I am so thankful our public education system was well funded back then; hell, we even still had good food as the Reagan budget cuts hadn't been fully implemented yet.
Comment by drkittymow at 08/03/2025 at 21:29 UTC
29 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It’s amazing how people have been convinced about what is or isn’t happening in schools. I recently heard someone saying that they thought the pledge of allegiance should be said in schools like it used to. I had to break the terrible news that public schools still do this everyday.
They think teachers are doing all these wild things of their own choosing instead of the same old stuff we have been doing for a hundred years. No, we aren’t doing that wild stuff, but I sure wish we could! Wouldn’t it be nice if teachers could actually determine the curriculum the way they think we do?!?!
Comment by RobValleyheart at 08/03/2025 at 20:04 UTC
149 upvotes, 3 direct replies
A mouth breather is someone who is too stupid to remember to close their mouth and breathe through their nose. A mouth breeder holds eggs or newly hatched young in their mouth, e.g. cichlids.
Steve is clearly a mouth breather. Kudos to you for telling him like it is. I heard magats like people who tell it how it is.
Comment by -zero-joke- at 08/03/2025 at 20:00 UTC
78 upvotes, 1 direct replies
There's a real lack of curiosity about this stuff which always surprises me.
Comment by jjp991 at 08/03/2025 at 22:16 UTC
15 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Title 1 pays for tutoring programs before and after the school day and some clubs—like my school’s highly popular and successful chess club. It pays the salaries of additional math and English teachers to hyget kids up to grade level. It pays for Saturday school and summer school programs—all targeting math and reading competency and at-risk students. I work 10-15 hours a week extra. And I’m a teacher and I get paid extra for the extra work. I think some people think DOE and Title I money is thrown around willynilly—like pork barrel spending. In my district and our state (I think) there is a lot of scrutiny about how the money is spent. I’ve seen title 1 fund really innovative and fun ways of engaging students and very little waste. Attendance is really important. They curtail programs in a manner of days if the attendance goals are not met.
I guess I see this spending a lot like funding for vaccines. You may save a few bucks on measles and polio vaccines, but in the aggregate, it’s costly to ignore—measles, polio and illiteracy—all scourges.
Comment by AboynamedDOOMTRAIN at 09/03/2025 at 07:59 UTC
11 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I had a conservative Trumper coworker pull something similar. We got to talking about immigration 1 day and just asked him "The thing I don't get is why republicans are so adamant about this stupid wall. It's not going to solve anything. So what do you guys want to do to actually solve the problem?"
He starts listing off the things he thinks we should do to solve the immigration issues in this country and I'm sure I had the dumbest fucking look on my face because all he did was sit there and literally list things democrats want to do to help curb illegal immigration.
Propaganda is a helluva drug
Comment by AlternativeSalsa at 08/03/2025 at 20:11 UTC
58 upvotes, 1 direct replies
These are the same halfwits that think kids are using litterboxes and need to learn how to write a check and paper file taxes.
Comment by Salt-Ad1282 at 08/03/2025 at 23:14 UTC
22 upvotes, 1 direct replies
We do need technical and trade training, but without the “softer” humanities (history, literature and art), we lose our character and soul. If we don’t know the “why,” hammering a nail gets pretty old. Richard Evans has a great series of books, written in the early 2000s, about Germany in the years just before, during and after Nazism. The Germans at that time focused on technical training at the loss of more classical education, and the Nazis found them just a little more pliable in their thinking/more adaptable to busting skulls. Technical training is great, but that alone does not make a good citizen or even a complete human being.
Comment by PJKetelaar3 at 08/03/2025 at 22:56 UTC
8 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Just wait until his and everybody else's property taxes go up when the states are forced to foot the bill. Wonder how that will be the Democrats' fault. Steve will find a way though!
Steve.
Comment by SoonerAlum06 at 08/03/2025 at 23:31 UTC
7 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Here in deep red Oklahoma we have an amazing votech system, critical to the two biggest employers in the state: military (specifically a huge maintenance depot and several large pilot training bases), and oil and gas. And our elected representatives continue to cut funding AND fight to eliminate it.
Comment by futureformerteacher at 08/03/2025 at 22:10 UTC
31 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Because all that MAGA has is hate. They hate education. They hate doctors. They hate science. They hate black people. They hate Latinos. They hate Ukrainians. They hate teachers. They hate women. They hate the environment. They hate gays.
And so their goal is to eliminate it all. They give it a scary name like "DEI" or "DOE" or "Trans" or whatever they decide to come up with.
And the oligarchs love it. Because now they can do whatever they want.
Comment by ResponsibleEmu7017 at 09/03/2025 at 09:17 UTC
6 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Slight side note - I just like how DEI stuff wasn't in place when half the country failed to learn about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff act in high school. Like, what 'woke bs' was preventing you from learning this crucial tidbit of relevant information about your country?
Comment by phantombrains at 08/03/2025 at 22:58 UTC
5 upvotes, 0 direct replies
F*ck that. STEVE should have left. His ilk are too comfortable speaking out loud and on the internet when they have no concept of what they are talking about. Youre out of your element, STEVE!
Good on you for setting the record straight!
Comment by skooley at 09/03/2025 at 01:32 UTC
5 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I frequently have to remind people in our local Facebook group that our school system teaches the trades and offers all of them in our high schools when they go on these rants. I just have the link to the county page ready at this point. It costs the students nothing to attend these programs in our division and transportation is provided. Students can even attend their home schools on "even" days and their programs schools on "odd"so they can stay in their neighborhood for most of their schooling. It still doesn't stop the people without children in schools from talking about how our schools need to offer...
Comment by KurtisMayfield at 08/03/2025 at 23:47 UTC
9 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Oh it's not about getting people work ready or whatever excuse they make up. It's about cutting money to brown people's districts.
Comment by flyingdics at 08/03/2025 at 20:32 UTC
17 upvotes, 1 direct replies
It's incredible how many conservative narratives about education are instantly provable as false, and yet we keep hearing about them constantly.
Comment by StellarJayZ at 08/03/2025 at 21:59 UTC
5 upvotes, 0 direct replies
There's been a few times where, in a large group setting, someone said migraine inducing bullshit to a large group of people as it were fact, and my wife pinched my leg. Pinch harder, I still was like "so...", but I'm glad you shut them down.
It seems most people tend to skew towards their feelings rather than uncomfortable facts, but the fact is I may not be invited to the party next time, but I'm not losing my integrity to get a party invite, and honestly, if honesty isn't a trait you respect I'd rather decline.
Letting that shit just fly I think is one of the reasons why we find ourselves here. People "don't like confrontation."
Well, person, I don't either. I don't actively seek it out, but if someone kicks down my colloquial door they're getting the fucking 12 gauge.
Comment by SpicyNuggs4Lyfe at 09/03/2025 at 00:58 UTC
5 upvotes, 0 direct replies
We live in a time where so many people think that because they have 24/7 access to the Internet on their phone, that that makes them an expert on anything and everything.
Healthcare and education seem to take the brunt of the arm-chair expert vitriol.
No, you didn't "do your own research" by reading a 5 paragraph article on why vaccines are bad from a Russian content farm. You're just an ignorant fuck.
Comment by AdventurousBee2382 at 09/03/2025 at 06:56 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
You mean mouth "breather" right?
Comment by J_Mart29 at 09/03/2025 at 11:29 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Great points here, and I don’t want to be overly facetious by pointing out this small error and ignoring the point at large but, the phrase you were looking for was “mouth breather” cause “mouth breeder” is something very different and altogether much more troubling
Comment by zyrkseas97 at 09/03/2025 at 16:34 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Even my red-going-purple home of AZ has EVIT, the East Valley Institute of Technology where 10th graders can go for vocational training in over 100 career fields from Cosmetology to Fire Fighting to Auto-mechanic to Robotics to Culinary and literally over 100 more all for free to any high school student in the East Valley. It’s thousands of dollars for adults to go to the same school for the same training and the value of the program is immense. I would bet if you did a partisan poll of favorability among educators I would be in the 90+% approval bracket for both parties.
Comment by opportunitysure066 at 09/03/2025 at 17:03 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Please tell me you called him a “mouth breather” to his face and not just think it 🙏🏼
Comment by Odd-Afternoon-589 at 08/03/2025 at 20:07 UTC*
15 upvotes, 10 direct replies
I’m not a teacher so I would appreciate everyone’s perspective on this, and feedback to my thoughts.
I am an independent conservative. My view is that too much of the DOE money is spent on administrators that not only don’t support teachers, but actively get in your way. If I could wave a magic wand, the administrative bloat would be reduced and that money would be redirected to huge increases in teacher salary (think 30-50%), classroom supplies, technology, and basically anything that would make teachers more effective and feel supported and appreciated for the national service they give.
Thanks in advance for anyone who replies.
Edit: thanks to everyone who was respectful and told me where I was mistaken without insults or generalizations, as I really am concerned our teachers are not treated with respect and face difficulties from admin (which I read over and over again on this sub). Overall though, not surprised but still disappointed that simply stating I was “conservative” was enough for folks to make assumptions and attack me. Reddit gonna Reddit I guess.