1. United States
2. Pa.
3. Letter

The department of education is an integral part of what holds our nation together & allows us to compete intellectually on the international stage. A shared national, federally-mandated educational core ensures that ALL Americans have a shared cultural knowledge base-integral to a nation of our scale. This works as a platform to allow ALL states to function effectively in collaboration-both private and public sectors. When we share a common knowledge base, WE ARE ALL SPEAKING THE SAME LANGUAGE, and with the SAME LEVEL OF UNDERSTANDING. By having a standardized, non-political curriculum, providing funding to help the underserved & in-need of the nation attain positive educational outcomes through programs like Title I and requiring IEPs & beyond, and providing grants, loans and support for citizens to go to college, we uplift the people of our nation & its chances to succeed on the international stage. Allowing anyone-from congress to an acting director with conflicts of interest, to a foreign actor like Elon Musk’s “DOGE” and its unqualified “staff” to gut the Department is hostile to American interests and will demonstrably make America stupider, illiterate, remove opportunity for self-improvement and lead to a Tower of Babel-style breakdown of shared national knowledge. In short: America will be worse-off in every way without the Department of Education. What will you do to ensure that Elon Musk and DOGE cannot take our biggest asset-KNOWLEDGE-away from the next generation?