On today's episode of the Sphere Podcast: Sphere Media Publisher Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry speaks to Paulina Neuding, an excellent Swedish journalist who has been covering the intersection of immigration, crime, and multiculturalism in that country for over a decade. Watch (Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcasts) and subscribe (Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcasts).

The ever-great Chris Rufo published yesterday his brief on how to "dismantle the Department of Education." He notes that "almost every Republican presidential candidate since 1980 has promised either to shrink or abolish the department, but its budget has only grown," but goes on to say that DOGE's approach can help.

"The Department of Education administers three primary activities: college student loans and grants; K-12 funding; and ideological production, which includes an array of programs, grants, civil rights initiatives, and third-party NGOs that create left-wing content to push on local schools."

Rufo then outlines his approach for each.

For college loans and grants: a spinoff. The idea here is that the massive college funding that Ed does every year should be undertaken by its own agency, which would then require "a devoted set of administrators, risk analysts, and cost-cutters" who would then work to try to shrink this portfolio of loans and grants as much as possible and shift as much as possible of it to the private sector, as well as "restricting the total number of loans, which is partially responsible for administrative bloat and the student-debt crisis."

Block-granting K-12. This is an idea as old as time, indeed as old as the idea to abolish Ed. The problem is it would require an Act of Congress. Rufo notes that currently this K-12 funding comes with lots of Federal strings attached and that it would be better to simply write checks to replace it. This is quite true. But he doesn't outline a legislative strategy to make it happen.

Ideological reform. This is the most interesting and important bit. Rufo: "The department maintains a sprawling network of ideological centers through its research programs, as well as a vast array of NGOs, which survive on department funding and promote left-wing identity activism." Those grants should be terminated and the people involved fired, Rufo says.

While sympathetic with the overall thrust, your correspondent sees two main problems.

The first is that large swathes of this plan require congressional action: certainly the block-grants; probably also the spin-off of college loans and grants.

The second is about the desirability of trying to squeeze college loans. Too many people go to college, and one reason why college debt is so astronomic is that it's so heavily subsidized. All of that is well and good. But what that indicates is that we need wholesale reform of the system, including, at least, non-college pathways to skilled employment, the ability to discharge college loans through bankruptcy, and an end to government guarantees to college loans, so that interest rates can accurately reflect risk, with a degree in interpretive dance being harder to get loans for than a degree in nursing. Reducing loans within the current system is more likely to simply make it harder for an average person to get a loan to get a degree. It's a very blunt instrument and one which would validate the perception of Republicans as mean people who just want to take away your stuff.

The third is about Ed's NGO complex and the onerous rules applied to K-12 funding. Getting rid of the current system would certainly be good. Replacing by a better system would be even better. President Trump's 1776 Commission would be an excellent starting point. For decades now, the average American public school has taught that, to cite Helen Andrews (paraphrasing) America was a dystopian hellhole until the arrival of civil rights and feminism in the 1960s. American schools should teach healthy American values, and it is perfectly within the Department of Education's purview to incentivize them to do so.

Policy News You Need To Know

#MAHA — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has been confirmed by the Senate to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

#OhCanada — A new report may shed light on what seemed to many people like the inexplicable hostility of the Trump Administration to Canada, especially on issues related to the border and fentanyl, where it would seem to the casual observer that Canada isn't the most important threat. According to a report by Canadian journalist Sam Cooper of The Bureau, American agencies have grown to consider that Canadian law enforcement is so penetrated by Asian organized crime that they no longer keep them in the loop of their operations.

#Trade — Turnabout is fair play. Yesterday we highlighted an article making the case against tariffs, so today here's Michael Lind in Commonplace, American Compass's magazine, making the case for Trump's steel tariff.

#DEI — Another piece of excellent reporting by Aaron Sibarium: "After Trump’s inauguration, the University of Michigan School of Nursing axed all its DEI programs. Or so it appeared. […] Turns out the school just renamed its DEI office the office of 'community culture.' And all its DEI programs are still in effect." Many anecdotal reports we've heard seem to indicate that this is not an isolated example. Academia will not give up the One Ring of DEI so easily. The Administration must be vigilant and, especially, DOJ's Office of Civil Rights must be relentless.

#Life — Important reporting from Jonathon Van Maren at First Things: "abortion activists have created a vast underground network to ship abortifacient drugs into states with pro-life laws, a perverse mirror and moral opposite of the life-giving Underground Railroad."