Ohio governor candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Monday lamented the education standard of US students and said students in China and Singapore are years ahead of the US students. The Indian-origin politician who recently irked the Republicans denouncing American culture said 75 per cent of US 8th graders are not proficient in Math.
“We can’t ignore the educational achievement crisis anymore. Students in China are 4 years ahead of ours here. Students in Singapore are a full 5 years ahead. 75% of U.S. 8th graders aren’t in proficient in math. Shutting down the failed U.S. Dept of Education is a good first step, but it’s going to fall on the states to fix the problem,” Ramaswamy said.
President Donald Trump will wrap up the department of education and Linda McMahon, the new education chief, has been tasked to facilitate the same. Elon Musl’s Department of Government Efficiency — Ramaswamy was also a co-chief of this — cut dozens of contracts that it deemed “woke” and wasteful.
Ramaswamy called out US culture, got booted from DOGE
39-year-old Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur, and a 2024 presidential candidate, criticized the American culture for worshipping mediocrity. His rant against US culture came as he was explaining why tech companies in the US rely more on foreign talents. His justification was that US culture, its education system do not produce the best engineers and hence the companies have to rely on H-1b workers. The dig rankled Republicans and Vivek Ramaswamy exited DOGE the same day Donald Trump was inaugurated as the president.
Ramaswamy’s exit was claimed to be a fallout of his clash with Elon Musk but both Donald Trump and Musk endorsed him for his bid for Ohio Governor.
Ramaswamy has made education a major issue of his campaigning. “Get the cell phones out of the schools,” he recently said in one of his education proposals.