There’s an old joke about a drunk man, stumbling about under a streetlamp looking for a dropped set of keys. When a helpful passerby asks if that’s where he dropped them, the drunk replies, “No, but the light’s better over here.” It’s hard not to feel that government bureaucrats take a similar approach to tackling the problem of education. They throw money at the problem, not because that’s what works, but because that’s what they know how to do.

A recent report from the Department of Education concluded that, after $7 billion of new federal spending since the end of the Bush administration, student outcomes haven’t improved at all. No Child Left Behind, Head Start, Race to the Top, Common Core, all the ridiculous federal initiatives we were told needed to be imposed on us “for the children” have amount to a big fat pile of nothing.

And we’re $7 billion poorer for it.

This report is not an outlier or an anomaly. Previous research has concluded the same thing. A study from the Cato Institute found that 40 years of increased education spending hasn’t resulted in positive changes in student performance. The Head Start program, in its own self-evaluation, concluded that any benefits conferred by the program on early childhood performance disappear over time.

So what are we to conclude after pouring billions of dollars into education and getting nothing in return? We know what the Democrats’ answer will be. It’s the same as ever. It’s not that spending doesn’t work, it’s that we haven’t spent enough. Never mind that the U.S. already has the highest per-student spending of almost any country in the world. Only an endless flow of cash can make our children smarter.

Or, we could take a more rational approach, realize that what we’re doing isn’t working, and try something else. Only a fool throws good money after bad. Only a mad man does the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. Instead of continuing to tax the people to pay for a bloated Department of Education that doesn’t, and can’t deliver on its promises, we should close down the entire failed institution. Maybe we should let states, localities, and parents decide how to educate their children free from the influence of federal meddling.

Democrats make a big show of being practical, empirical, science-based, and doing what works. How many more studies will it take to convince them that the Department of Education has failed our children long enough? (For more from the author of “Dept. Of Ed. Admits More Money Isn’t Fixing America’s Schools. Will We Change Course?” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Who would have thought a butter knife could become the center of a school controversy?

Last month, officials at Silver Trail Middle School near Miami, Florida, suspended an 11-year-old honors student for violating a county policy strictly prohibiting weapons on campus. The girl’s weapon of choice: a butter knife fit for a toddler.

To highlight the dangers of having this dull knife on campus, the police noted to state prosecutors that the girl used it to cut a peach. Such is the folly of overcriminalization: Every minor mishap gets crammed into the criminal justice system when it could be easily resolved by other means.

In defense of their daughter, the girl’s parents explained that they gave her a set of utensils “made for children to learn how to eat properly.” But despite this educational purpose behind the possession, school officials pounced when the girl brandished the short, dull, rounded utensil, cut a peach in half, and shared it with a hungry friend during lunch time in the school cafeteria.

A commonsense response? Give the girl a gold star for sharing. But instead, the county’s zero tolerance policy toward weapons required punishment.

The zero tolerance policy prohibits possession of a Class B weapon on school premises. This includes such items as razor blades, nunchakus, shotgun shells, and knives—including “blunt-bladed table knives.” Possession of these weapons is considered a criminal incident and can trigger a host of consequences, including not only a minimum six-day suspension from school, but also a mandatory report to law enforcement.

That’s failure No. 1 by the adults in the room. A student using a butter knife is not an incident that requires the time and attention of law enforcement.

And here is failure No. 2: After examining the evidence—a single butter knife—the police department turned over the investigation to the local Florida state attorney’s office, which is now weighing whether to bring criminal charges against the student.

A spokeswoman for the school district maintains that the school followed district policy throughout the incident, while pointing out that the district is working with the family of the suspended student by agreeing to reduce her suspension from six to three days. Needless to say, the family is not satisfied with the ongoing investigation and has hired a lawyer to represent them in the matter.

Surely, there must be someone along the chain of command with the requisite discretion to understand that an 11-year-old cutting a peach with a child’s butter knife is not the type of evil that a school weapons ban is intended to protect against.

The rigidness of a zero tolerance policy that requires taxpayer dollars to fund a criminal investigation into a student who simply cut a peach illustrates a systemic flaw in school discipline procedures.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident, but yet another example of an overreaction to minor infractions due to a zero tolerance school weapons ban, which can have serious consequences.

In Ohio, 10th-grader Da’von Shaw gave a class presentation on how to make a healthy breakfast, which included an apple that he sliced in front of the class. Da’von received a five-day suspension for possessing a weapon on campus due to his demonstration.

In California, high school senior Brandon Cappelletti was not nearly as fortunate. He faced a misdemeanor charge after school officials discovered pocket knives left over from a family fishing trip in the console of his car, which was parked on school grounds. Cappelletti narrowly avoided expulsion due to community outrage against the disproportionate punishment.

Cappelletti’s football coach opposed the severity of potential consequences by sharing, “I’m willing to stick my neck out for these kids because they are the kind we want representing us in society … I hope their lives won’t change because of an innocent mistake.”

Criminal charges carry a multitude of collateral consequences, which could have prevented Cappelletti from following in his father’s footsteps and joining the Marines. He enlisted shortly after charges were dropped.

In all of the aforementioned incidents, schools relied on zero tolerance policies that can produce harmful and unexpected results. To be sure, schools must take weapons seriously, but in a way that requires educators to exercise discretion in evaluating what is in fact a weapon, as well as the nature of an offense.

This one-size-fits-all approach to discipline is a significant contributor to overcriminalization, which is the effort to punish every mistake and attempt to solve every problem through the use of the criminal law and penalties.

This ill-suited suspension and investigation into an 11-year-old with a butter knife is an apt opportunity for school districts and localities to use a little common sense and re-examine how to handle rules violations in a more constructive and equitable manner. (For more from the author of “Middle School Girl Gets Suspended for Possessing a Butter Knife” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Thursday marked the start of “The 17th Annual White Privilege Conference” and this year’s theme is “Let Freedom Ring, Re-Imagining Equality & Social Justice in the United States.”

The annual event is aimed at promoting the theory of White Privilege – that American society is hopelessly stacked against minorities and the only way to fix the system is for white people to acknowledge their immense “privilege” and repent.

“Our vision is to build a community committed to dismantling white privilege, white supremacy and oppression, every day, everywhere,” wrote Eddie Moore Jr., founder and president of “The Privilege Institute,” which organizes the event.

“WPC fosters an environment where every participant can engage deeply, and then through our Accountability program, bring what they have learned back to their own community so that their WPC experience impacts their lives, employment, and community all year long.”

The 2016 theme and Philadelphia location are designed to highlight the main reasons why the White Privilege Institute, and its like-minded attendees at the conference, hate America the most. (Read more from “Thousands of Teachers Flock to ‘White Privilege Conference'” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.