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March 28, 2025 - Liberty Hangout - Kaitlin Bennett
10:44
Kaitlin Bennett Destroys Department of Education
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So I never thought this would happen, but I might have just single-handedly ended the Department of Education.
No, seriously.
Remember my pop quiz on the beach video I uploaded last week?
It didn't get too much attention here on YouTube, but it absolutely blew up on X with over 8 million views and sparked a national conversation about education reform.
And for once, both the right and the left agreed with me on something.
Our education system is broken.
Before we get into the reactions, let me give you the backstory.
There haven't been a whole lot of protests going on lately, so I thought it would be fun to make another lighthearted video at Clearwater Beach, like the good old days.
And what's the number one thing you guys have always liked when I go there?
When I ask basic questions about American history and find out just how little our youth know about their own country.
Who did the colonists fight in the Revolutionary War?
In the Revolution.
It's just, oh, I don't know if this is right.
I mean, it sounds so stupid.
Was it the Spanish?
How many justices are on the Supreme Court?
Justices?
So I got, like, when you say that, like, you mean like the FBI?
Name three states that border Canada.
We're just do one per person.
Oh.
Asia.
So I asked them questions from the civics test immigrants have to pass to become U.S. citizens.
And without fail, almost everyone I talked to struggled to give me any hope in the next generation.
What shape is the U.S. Pentagon building?
Isn't it just a square?
How many U.S. senators are there?
Six, six, six.
Now I've been doing these pop quiz on the beach videos for six years now, and they've always done relatively well on YouTube and Facebook.
But for some reason, this video in particular hit X at just the right time and blew up to the tune of 8 million views.
It was pretty crazy for me to see because I've found way more ignorant voters in the past, such as this.
How many continents are there?
Mom asks me this every day.
Um, 13.
What continent are we on right now?
I'm not from Florida.
I don't know.
Which one are we in right now?
South America?
I quickly realized that this video blew up because of the ongoing discussions about abolishing the Department of Education.
And everyone wanted to use my video as exhibit A for why the department needs to be shut down.
The first big account to promote my video was Cat Turd, who simply said, now you know why Trump is abolishing the Department of Education.
Libs of TikTok weighed in and said since 1980, the Department of Education spent $1 trillion and test scores have been declining.
This video is the result of the failed education department.
Thankfully, Trump is putting an end to the waste.
Make education great again.
Senator Mike Lee was completely blown away and asked, they're messing with us, right?
Country singer John Rich said, this is what an $80 billion per year budget gets you with the Department of Education.
These American kids are blithering idiots.
But I think the biggest fan of the video was Megan Kelly, who played the clip on her show for Ben Shapiro and ESPN host Stephen A. Smith to weigh in on.
Spring break is full of idiots.
And you'll see why I'm showing this to you.
Watch.
Who's the governor of your state?
Pennsylvania.
Ben Shapiro.
Wow, I mean, I guess that's who I'm going to get elected governor of Pennsylvania right there.
And then that's my spokesperson.
Who won the Civil War, American Civil War?
Was it East or West?
The students responded.
Name is Supreme Court Justice.
The girl said, is it the FBI?
Everything is about now and the world is going to come to an end if we don't get what we want now.
So we're in school.
Let's have a good time.
We hit have a good time.
Yeah, we gotta go to class.
Well, we really want to pull.
I want to get inside that guy's head and find what do you think the world looks like?
Where do you think you are right now?
Because apparently you think Asia is close by and that between you and Canada is Asia.
Every now and again, big name conservatives will share my stuff to make a point about an ongoing issue in the country.
But the craziest thing about this video was that even liberals were sharing it around as proof that our schools are failing.
And with both sides of the aisle can look at this same issue and say, yeah, this is really bad, you know it's really bad.
The liberal account Republicans Against Trump shared my video and said, Houston, we have a problem.
Democrat activist Molly Plufkins shared it and said, we're screwed, America.
John Collins wrote, we are so doomed.
But my favorite tweets were the ones that came to the opposite conclusion as their Republican counterparts.
Brian Cardone with a Ukrainian flag in his handle wrote, holy F, we are in serious, serious trouble as a country, folks.
This isn't funny at all.
It's very disturbing.
The lack of understanding about civics and history from these students is why we have Donald Trump as president.
This is wild, y'all.
And Democrat political analyst Rachel Beitkofer shared it and said, if you want to understand why Trump won.
However, some of my followers pointed out something interesting that undercuts their claim that this is why Trump won.
The demographic I talked to the most on the beach, college-educated white women, voted overwhelmingly for Harris and have negative opinions of Trump.
So after seeing everyone's reactions to the video, let's talk about why so many young people don't know anything about American history and why President Trump is 100% right when he says it's time to abolish the Department of Education.
The decline of American education by the numbers.
America's education system has been in complete free fall since the Department of Education was created in 1979.
We're spending more money than you could ever imagine, and yet our kids are less educated than ever.
In 1979, before the DOE existed, U.S. students ranked in number one in global education rankings.
And today, we've plummeted to number 22 in science and number 30 in math out of 79 countries.
Despite K through 12 education spending increasing by over 280% since 1980, math and reading scores have flatlined or declined.
Eighth grade math scores just hit a 30-year low.
40% of college students require remedial classes just to learn what they should have been taught in high school.
Only 13% of eighth graders are proficient in U.S. history.
That means 87% of kids don't know basic facts about their own country, which makes perfect sense when you watch my videos.
Who won the Civil War?
Oh shoot, it's East or West, right?
Well, it's the Civil War.
So it's the civilians versus whoever was in power.
This isn't just an education failure.
It's a national crisis.
We're talking about basic, fundamental knowledge that used to be second nature.
But instead of fixing this, the DOE has focused on DEI, lowering education standards, and pushing ideological nonsense into the classrooms.
And the results speak for themselves.
Why the Department of Education has to go.
This isn't even a new argument.
Ronald Reagan wanted to abolish the DOE the year after it was created because he saw where this was headed.
And he was absolutely right.
Federal involvement has only made things worse.
Every major education reform pushed by the DOE has been a total disaster.
Common core?
Test scores dropped big time after its implementation.
No child left behind.
This created a teach-to-the-test culture that left students without critical thinking skills.
Race to the top?
Funneled billions into wasteful programs that did nothing to improve student performance.
Since the Department of Education was created, we've spent over $2 trillion on federal education programs.
And for what?
Dumber kids who know nothing and can't solve anything?
What year did we gain our independence from Great Britain?
And 1,492.
The Department of Education isn't fixing our problems.
It is the problem.
Now, what's the solution?
Local control and Florida's success.
Here's where we get to the solution.
Local control.
And as I always love to do, I will point to Ron DeSantis' successes here in Florida as the blueprint.
Instead of a bloated federal agency in Washington, D.C. that has no connection to students in faraway states, parents in local communities should be the primary educators of their children.
Let's take a look at how Florida's common sense policies have done for the state.
Florida students now outperform the national average in math and reading after massive education reforms.
Florida banned Common Core, pushed school choice, and promoted classical education.
And guess what?
It's working.
School choice programs in Florida have given thousands of families better education options, forcing public schools to step up their game.
This is what happens when we take power away from bureaucrats and give it back to parents.
It's called subsidiarity, a Catholic principle that says problems should be solved at the most local level possible.
It's the opposite of big government control, and it works.
So where do we go from here?
I am all on board with Trump's efforts to abolish the Department of Education.
It is long overdue.
The best way we can invest in our children isn't by throwing dollars at them, but by empowering their parents and communities to take back the powers that the DOE stripped from them in the first place.
It's going to take all of us to be vocal about this, and thankfully, videos like mine have done a tremendous job pushing the ball forward.
As funny as these videos are, let's be honest, they're actually just kind of sad.
And it seems like the entire country can agree that something needs to be done.
And while the Republican Party has the power to do so, I say they use it for the right reasons.
Call your local congressmen and tell them to get on board.
It's time to abolish the Department of Education.
Tell them to check out Liberty Hangout here on YouTube if they need any reason why.
I know this video today is a little break from my usual content, so I want to thank you guys for bearing with me and hit that notification bell so you can get alerted when more videos like my one in Clearwater go out.
Thank you for watching and we'll see you next time.
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