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Meanwhile, public schools say they’re broke, teachers say they’re not paid enough, and a majority of students can’t read or do math at grade level.
The U.S. Department of Education gave over $1 billion in grants for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, according to a new Parents Defending Education (PDE) report.
PDE is an organization that says it is “fighting indoctrination in the classroom — and for the restoration of a healthy, non-political education for our kids.”
On December 12 it released a report on grant spending by the Department of Education. The report examined available data on grants awarded by the Department from 2021-present.
The report only includes grants that featured DEI, Social/Emotional Learning (SEL), restorative practices, or youth activism as part of the programs and excludes grants awarded that use language relating to DEI but did not have DEI as a focus of the grant.
The report showed that Education officials have awarded $1,002,522,304 in grants for DEI and SEL since 2021.
Nearly $490 million of that went to DEI and race-based hiring, recruitment, retention, and training practices.
More than $343 million went to DEI programming that includes trainings, restorative discipline practices, and youth activism.
Over $169 million was awarded for SEL programs and trainings.
North Carolina received the highest amount of funding at $160,871,561. Duke University was granted just shy of $50 million, while Montgomery County Schools (MCS) and the Innovation Project, a non-profit entity operating in North Carolina, were each awarded over $21 million.
MCS was one of the awardees that PDE discussed in its report. The district was awarded the amount for a program called “Teacher and Principal Effectiveness Acceleration in Montgomery (TEAM).”
One of TEAM’s goals is to increase its percentage of “diverse” educators. Specifically, TEAM aims to increase student performance by recruiting and retaining these diverse educators and training them through programs such as “monthly Teaching-In Color PD, designed to build teachers and school leaders’ ability to support diverse students through equitable instructional and disciplinary practices to increase student achievement and decrease incidences of inequitable disciplinary practices.”
The District’s “Diversity and Inclusion Plan” features “race-based Teacher Affinity Groups ‘Black and Hispanic teachers who meet monthly to discuss mutual concerns and provide support for one another.’”
Ypsilanti Community Schools in Michigan was awarded a grant of more than $15 million. Nearly $40,000 of the grant was spent on a one-day “culturally responsive training” and copies of the speaker’s book “Tangible Equity.”
The report also called attention to the $4 million grant given to California-based MK Level Playing Field Institute for “SMASH 3.0: Innovation in Programming Strategies that Promote Equity in Computer Science Pathways for Historically-Excluded Students.”
The project tries to select “student identities underrepresented in the computing field,” which include “Black, Latine, Native, low-income, girls, non-binary.”
The three-week-long summer program for 11th and 12th grade students is a “culturally-responsive CS exposure program that prepares marginalized students to engage with a CS path” that includes social emotional workshops.
SMASH’s core value is “We Lead with Racial Justice and Reflect the Communities.”
PDE said other grants featured programs such as “training school counselors in trauma-informed, Antiracist Social-Emotional Learning (TIAR-SEL), race-based teacher affinity groups, youth activism, and racial equity focused restorative practices advised by a far-left activist.”
PDE founder and President Nicki Neily stated in an interview with Fox News, “We’re at a time when 40 percent of American students can’t read, and this is how the Biden-Harris administration chose to fritter away hard-earned American taxpayer dollars. It’s really a slap in the face.”
Neily, agreeing with sentiments from Vivek Ramaswamy, the co-chair of the incoming Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), said that DEI isn’t just a waste of money but actively harmful. She cited research by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) and Rutgers University that showed DEI causes increased hostility between groups and authoritarian behavior.
The study found that when exposed to DEI training, people became much more likely to see racism and discrimination in a situation and desired that people receive punishment even if there was no evidence that they were being racist or engaging in discrimination.
Michele Exner, Senior Advisor at Parents Defending Education, stated,
“Over one billion dollars squandered on progressive pet projects all while American students’ academic performance continues to plummet. Under Secretary Cardona, this organization has been a complete farce that has failed families and students time and time again. This will be the legacy of the Biden administration’s Department of Education. Families are fed up and are excited for January when we will have new leadership in the nation’s capital who will focus on getting this toxic and divisive waste out of our education system.”
PDE and those families may get their wish as the incoming administration has promised to go after DEI spending and possibly even dismantle the Department of Education.
Teachers’ unions constantly claim that public schools don’t receive enough funding, a point they use to argue against school choice. One of their favorite mantras is that teachers are not only underpaid but that they have to buy school supplies for children because the families and the schools can’t afford them.
And yet, the U.S. Department of Education has a budget of $241.66 billion for Fiscal Year 2024. Over the last four years, it has given over $1 billion in grants for DEI. What if that money was actually focused on teaching basic academics and improving student learning?
As we have reported numerous times, the public school system is not working, especially for minority children stuck in “segregated, dangerous, and failing schools.” In Chicago, roughly 75 percent of students can’t read at grade level and 83 percent are not proficient in math. It’s even worse in Baltimore. In 2023, zero students at 23 Baltimore schools tested proficient in math; at one high school, 77 percent of students were found to be reading at an elementary school level and 25 percent were reading at or below first grade.
The problem isn’t adequate funding, and it never has been. Chicago and Baltimore have some of the highest per student spending in the nation — and some of the worst outcomes.
No, the problem is that the U.S. Department of Education is woefully mismanaging the billions of dollars it does receive every year, pouring those taxpayer funds into self-serving programs that enrich their allies like teachers’ unions, progressive activists, and DEI consultants — all the while pushing a radical agenda and indoctrinating students.
America’s schools have failed, and no amount of bloated budgets is going to fix that.
Hopefully with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the new administration’s threats to streamline and reallocate the federal education budget to states and other federal departments, the U.S. Education Department will be forced to get back to basics by eliminating ideological spending and working to actually fix schools and provide students with the high-quality education they deserve.
Many K-12 schools now embrace the secular woke agenda and are hostile to Christian beliefs and parental rights. Fortunately, parents don’t have to settle for this. Liberty University Online Academy is a K-12 program designed to educate your children in the ways of the Lord while preparing them to stand firm in their faith when they graduate. Our flexible online curriculum ensures that your student is trained at your convenience and keeps YOU the ultimate educator of your children.
