By C. J. Garbo | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice
Public education was the single most destructive force of my life. It was not just a failed system; it was a weapon – an insidious mechanism that fostered and cultivated powerful lies about my self-image and self-worth that took decades to unlearn.
The environment was not one of discovery, inspiration, or growth, but a bleak landscape of conformity and mediocrity, where creativity was stifled, curiosity was punished, and true excellence was treated as a threat rather than a goal.
The opportunity cost of this system is beyond measure.
How can one quantify the years lost to self-doubt, the potential unfulfilled, the talents unexplored, and the opportunities that vanished because the very institution tasked with equipping me for life instead systematically stripped me of confidence and clarity?
For years, I believed the lies public education taught me – that I was below average, my thoughts and feelings were unwanted and undesired, that my potential was fixed, and that conformity was the price of acceptance. I was conditioned to equate obedience with intelligence and compliance with success. It was not until much later in life, through self-education and the influence of mentors outside that failed system, that I began to see the truth – that my potential was not just greater than what I had been led to believe, but exponentially so.
By then, however, the damage was done. The time and opportunity that could have been spent building, creating, discovering, and achieving were instead squandered in a system designed not to elevate but to equalize – by dragging everyone down to the same low standard.
The opportunity cost is incalculable.
It is the cost of years spent dismantling the false beliefs instilled in me, years that could have been spent discovering my own limits, building businesses, writing books, advancing in my career, or changing lives for the better.
This is the silent tragedy of public education: not the damage that can be seen, but the potential that was never realized. For every student who leaves this system broken, there is a cost paid not just by them but by society as a whole – the cures not discovered, the businesses not built, the leadership not provided.
The objective data confirms what many of us have experienced firsthand. Public education, despite ever-increasing budgets, has produced diminishing returns in academic performance, critical thinking skills, and workforce readiness. The United States spends more per student than almost any other country, yet it ranks embarrassingly low in mathematics, reading, and science.
Since the creation of the Department of Education, the inflation-adjusted per-pupil spending has more than doubled, yet test scores have stagnated or even declined. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the Nation’s Report Card, only about a third of American students are proficient in reading and math. In many urban districts, the numbers are even worse, with proficiency rates in the single digits.
This is not just a failure – it is a betrayal of multiple generations.
Worse yet, public education has abandoned its original mission of knowledge enhancement and skills development and has transformed into a propaganda machine for cultural indoctrination. It is no longer about teaching students how to think but rather what to think.
Critical race theory, gender ideology, and climate alarmism have infiltrated the curriculum, not as subjects for debate but as dogmas to be accepted without question. School boards have become battlegrounds, not for better math and science curricula, but for the imposition of radical social agendas that have no place in an institution funded by taxpayers of all political and religious beliefs.
Teachers’ unions, ostensibly advocates for educators, have revealed themselves to be political action committees masquerading as protectors of children. Their focus is not on literacy rates or graduation outcomes but on leveraging the public school system to advance a progressive agenda.
The result is a population devoid of critical thinking skills – a citizenry that lacks the ability to reason logically, assess information objectively, or engage in civil debate. Public education has created a generation that confuses activism with achievement, feelings with facts, and slogans with solutions.
This intellectual decay has bled into every industry, from journalism to academia, from government to corporate America, where emotional reasoning and ideological conformity now trump merit and truth. It is no accident that media literacy has plummeted in the same era that saw the rise of politicized education. A populace trained not to think critically is a populace that cannot distinguish truth from propaganda, leadership from demagoguery, or liberty from license.
This is why the news of President Trump’s plan to abolish the Department of Education is not just welcome – it is essential. The Department has proven itself to be a bureaucratic behemoth, not a guardian of education standards but an enforcer of mediocrity and Marxist orthodoxy.
It has wielded federal funds like a club, forcing local districts to adopt curricula and policies that have nothing to do with academic achievement and everything to do with political indoctrination. Its removal would be a first step – a long-overdue step – toward restoring control of education to parents, communities, and states. It would open the door for school choice, for competition, for innovation, and for a new era where education is about excellence and achievement, not equity.
The enemies of this plan will predictably howl that the federal government must ensure “fairness,” that it must safeguard “equity,” and that local control would lead to chaos.
But what could be more chaotic, more unfair, and more inequitable than the current system – where billions are spent to produce illiterate graduates, where merit is sacrificed on the altar of diversity quotas, and where children are taught to hate their country, distrust their parents, and embrace victimhood as their primary identity?
We need a national reckoning – a recognition that public education has not just failed but has betrayed its mission, its students, and this nation. And we must demand not just reform but revolution – tearing out the bureaucracy root and branch, restoring the principles of choice, accountability, and excellence.
The Founding Fathers understood that a well-educated populace was the keystone of a free republic. They did not envision a system where indoctrination masqueraded as education, where obedience was taught as citizenship, and where the cost of freedom was ignorance.
If this revolution is successful, it will not just be a victory for students and parents, but for the very survival of the republic. If it fails, we will continue to raise generations of Americans who are not citizens but subjects – dependent, indoctrinated, and incapable of self-government.
The stakes could not be higher.
It is time to dismantle the Department of Education and replace it with something worthy of this nation’s past and capable of securing its future.
C. J. Garbo is a seasoned political strategist and outspoken advocate for educational reform with over a decade of experience in policy analysis and conservative grassroots activism. Drawing from his personal struggles within the public education system and his extensive background in public service, Garbo has dedicated his efforts to exposing the systemic failures of government-run schools and championing policies that empower parents and prioritize real learning over indoctrination. He holds a B.A. and an M.Sc. and was the first person in his family to attend and graduate from higher education and learning.
Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.