Trump and Project 2025 Take on the Department of Education. How Could They Reshape American Schools? | Education in the United States

Donald Trump wants to close the U.S. Department of Education, saying at recent rallies that it should be disbanded and everything handed back to the states where it belongs.

The idea of ​​dismantling the Department of Education has become increasingly common, though it is almost as old as the department itself, which was created by Congress as a cabinet-level agency in 1979. Trump made similar promises during the 2016 campaign to either shrink or hobble the department.

Removing it would require congressional action, which may be an impossible feat, although many of Trump and his allies' education policy goals could be achieved through presidential action.

Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s right-wing manifesto for a possible incoming Trump administration, lays out how dismantling the federal Education Department would work, leaving behind, if at all, a shell focused solely on serving as a statistics-gathering agency that disseminates information to states, writes Lindsey Burke, author of the education chapter and head of Heritage’s education policy center.

Eliminating these departments is one of many goals contained in the broad conservative agenda that will guide a second Trump term. The 2025 plan calls for the privatization of education and the elimination of all programs related to LGBTQ+ youth or diversity.

“This playbook contains details we’ve never seen before,” said Wead James, senior director of K-12 policy at the Center for American Progress. “It would have profound implications for civil rights, school funding and student progress, not to mention the fate of public schools,” she said.

What's striking about all of this is that the Department of Education is actually the smallest of all the ministerial-level agencies. It has just over 4,000 employees, James said. So we need to look at investing in the department and increasing its capacity to do the work it was designed to do.

Burke, the Heritage author, declined an interview request. In a statement, the Heritage Foundation said that while it seeks to make recommendations to the next conservative president, it does not speak for any candidate or campaign. And while Trump’s campaign has tried to distance the candidate from Project 2025, saying he has his own agenda, the former president and the project are aligned on much of their education plans.

In a speech this week at a conference on faith and freedom, Mr. Trump lambasted education rankings and spending, saying the United States was performing poorly despite spending so much on students. Some states could do better without federal intervention, he said.

“We're going to cut our budget in half and not everyone is going to be on top of things,” he said. I mean, [California governor] Gavin Newsom is not going to do a good job on education, so I don't expect that from him. And I don't expect that from some other people. But a lot of states, I would say 40 out of 50 states are going to do much better. And I bet 30 of them are going to be phenomenal.

Trump tells voters on his campaign website some of the ways he would handle education:

Cut federal funding to schools that promote critical race theory or gender ideology to our children and open civil rights investigations against them for race-based discrimination.

End trans youth access to sport.

Create an organization that will certify teachers who adhere to patriotic values.

Reward districts that get rid of teacher tenure.

Adopt a declaration of parents' rights.

Implement direct election of school principals by parents.

School funding has fundamentally changed

In the United States, education is primarily funded and overseen by state and local governments, but the federal government funds some elements of education and sets some policies, which are then implemented at the local level.

Currently, schools receive federal grants for specific purposes, such as helping low-income students or students with disabilities. States implement these programs, often hiring staff to ensure they meet federal requirements.

Phasing [Title I] This is going to be very detrimental to this population of students who are already vulnerable for many reasons, says Wead James of the Center for American Progress.

The 2025 bill proposes different ways to give states control over federally funded and managed programs. Rather than determining how the funds should be used, it generally states should receive money without any strings attached to spend it on educational purposes that are legal under state law.

These block grants are often rejected. And when states receive fixed amounts rather than funds based on specific needs, they can often fall short of their targets.

The bill proposes phasing out a major program, Title I, over 10 years. The $18 billion funding source supports low-income students. Instead, the bill says states should take control of decision-making about how to provide quality education to children from low-income families.

Phasing out this measure would be very detrimental to this population of students who are already vulnerable for many reasons, James said.

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The Heritage Foundation also wants to eliminate Head Start, a program that funds early childhood education for low-income families, because it is tainted by scandal and abuse, according to a chapter on the Department of Health and Human Services. The Center for American Progress says in a new report that eliminating Head Start would reduce access and increase the cost of child care, which would harm economic stability.

Beyond these major funding changes, both the bill and Trump want to see expanded school choice, such as voucher programs that allow students to use money that would otherwise pay for public school tuition to attend private schools. Trump has said he supports school choice, or allowing any student to use taxpayer funds to attend the school of their choice. Trump also has a video on his campaign website dedicated to how he would help homeschool families.

And what about the students who are going to stay in those public schools? James asked. We need to change our narrative to really focus on investing in public schools, rather than on vouchers that take resources away from public schools.

The project cites the expansion of vouchers to all students in Arizona as a model, although the program has come under much scrutiny, particularly recently over its costs.

LGBTQ+ issues and diversity under attack

Anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-diversity policies are scattered throughout Project 2025’s educational recommendations and Trump’s platform. The project also supports the adoption of a Parents’ Bill of Rights to give parents greater access to school materials.

The bill proposes to strip education programs of gender ideology and critical race theory, such as including a nonbinary category in data collection or allowing transgender youth to participate in sports that match their gender. It also requires parental approval for the use of names or pronouns other than those on birth certificates. It also wants to remove protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The 2025 project suggests that the federal government implement anti-LGBTQ+ policies in the schools it oversees to set an example for state and local leaders.

The bill cites as examples of what critical race theory should be abolished mandatory affinity groups, teacher training programs that require teachers to confess their privilege, or assignments in which students must defend the false idea that America is systematically racist. These activities actively disrupt the values ​​that unite communities, such as equality before the law and color blindness.

The bill also wants what remains of the Department of Education to collect data and report on programs or grants that propagate DEI/CRT/gender ideology, how family structure affects student achievement, how pandemic relief funds have been spent, and how much money is going directly into classrooms through federal grant programs.

Trump has also made diversity and LGBTQ+ issues in schools a priority at his rallies.

At the religious conference, he promised to sign an executive order on day one that would cut federal funding to any school that imposes critical race theory, transgenderism, insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children's lives.

Sources 1/ https://Google.com/ 2/ https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/jul/04/trump-project-2025-heritage-foundation-education-department The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article

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