Dept. of Education Kids' Website Quotes...Mao Zedong

​Editor's note: See updates below

A Department of Education children's website featured a quote Friday from none other than deceased Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong.

The quote, still up as of Friday afternoon, was on the "Kids' Zone" portion of the National Center for Education Statistics website [UPDATE, 3:30 p.m.: ​The quote has been removed]. The NCES "is the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education in the U.S. and other nations" and is located within the Department of Education.

Representatives from the Department of Education did not immediately return phone calls from TheBlaze seeking comment about why the quote was posted or the decision to delete it.

​Update II:​ The Department of Education issued a statement to TheBlaze calling the quote "poorly chosen." It was automatically generated from a database last updated in 2007, a spokesman said.

“The Kids’ Zone website hosted by the National Center of Education Statistics earlier today featured a poorly chosen quote, intended to highlight the importance of teaching and learning, in the “Quote of the Day” feature. This feature, which automatically generates one education-related quote per day from a database of quotes last updated in 2007, has been temporarily suspended pending a review of the database’s contents,” the department statement said.

The spokesman said the department became aware of the quote through mentions on Twitter after it became "fodder" for jokes.

(H/T: BuzzFeed)