The Department of Education: Unsurpassed in their Achievement of FAIL

Throughout the 1980's every proggie worth his No Nukes T-Shirt used to sniff urbanely at the level of education spending versus the level of defense spending. "If we can spend this much on the military," went the refrain, or "for the cost of a B-1 bomber..." implying that if only the magic money spigot could be turned on, American education would return to the world's forefront.

The meme, repeated often enough, lodged itself in the collective unconscious, and behold: Federal defense spending now stands at 190% of what it was in 1970. The result?

Bupkis. (h/t: Protein Wisdom)

That's zip, nada, nothing. We've increased education spending by an order of magnitude and test scores remain as flat as a pancake pressed in a panini machine by a 2-dimensional hyperintelligent shade of the color red.

And when Reagan made large cuts to ed. spending in the early 80's? Nothing happened. When the GOP Congress made slight cuts in the mid-90's? Yet more nothing happened. 

So if the Department of Education vanished overnight, does anyone pretend that our educational output would change to any appreciable degree?