Will Trump Really End The Department Of Education
From Forbes.com
It has been on the conservative To Do list for decades, and the incoming administration keeps insisting that this time it’s really going to happen. But will it?
Over the weekend, Trump’s Ten Principles for Education video from Agenda 47 was circulating on line as a new “announcement” or “confirmation” of his education policy, despite the fact that the video was posted in September of 2023.
The list of goals may or may not be current, but it underlines a basic contradiction at the heart of Trump’s education plans. The various goals can be boiled down to two overall objectives:
1) To end all federal involvement and oversight of local schools
2) To exert tight federal control over local schools
Trump has promised that schools will not teach “political indoctrination,” that they will teach students to be “love their country,” that there will be school prayer, that students will “have access to” project-based learning, and that schools will expel students who harm teachers or other students. He has also proposed stripping money from colleges and universities that indoctrinate students and using the money to set up a free of charge “world class education” system.
ICYMI, Texas, of course, is leading the way on dismantling higher education's "indoctrination."
"The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents on Thursday unanimously directed its flagship university to disband an LGBTQ+ studies minor, months after conservative lawmakers and websites accused the program of promoting 'liberal indoctrination' on campus."
"The LGBTQ Studies minor is one of 14 minors and 38 certificate programs that administrators said were 'low-producing,' according to a new process they developed to identify and eliminate programs with low enrollments. But faculty argue the process used inaccurate information and faulty data. It also kept faculty from providing input about curriculum decisions, they said.
https://www.texastribune.org/2024/11/07/texas-a-m-lgbtq-studies-minor/
Outside of all the culture wars BS, there is a serious discussion to be had about the role of the Ed Dept. It’s not clear to me that there was ever much to be gained by adding a layer of Federal control on top of that of the states. As you have so effectively argued over the years, trying to do national education standards is a fool’s game. The department mainly functions as a $ conduit, shuffling resources from one state to another. If it went away, I don’t think it would be missed.