Trump’s running draw for education related issues, as his second term presidency was recently gained, is to abolish the Department of Education. He has previously advocated openly for the abolishment of the Department of Education during the campaign trial (and he did propose joining together the Labor and Education Departments during his first presidency), but this campaign trial talk was when he didn’t hold any real political power, now he’s going to be our future president in about 2 months as this article was written. Trump has his reasons for this stance on the Department, Trump has his barriers in Congress to pass this act through, and Trump has political opposition to this dialogue, all expected components of political discussions. This political decree against the Department of Education from someone in such an influential and powerful position holds lots of magnitude, but the bureaucracy of Congress and the reality and consequences of this dicey issue suspends itself over the actuality of something like this getting actually passed, greatly complicating everything.
What is the Department of Education, and what does it do? The Department obviously concerned itself with education, specifically, public education. Most of the funding towards public schools comes from the states and local sources, not the federal government, but the government does contribute around 14% of funding towards public schooling. Some of the funding plays a large role in lower income programs, and helping students with disabilities the Department also controls policies for education and enacts laws. It serves as a bridge between the laws and courses of the federal government, congress and the president, and the school near your backyard. The department also collects national data about schools.
Trump has cited ‘wokeness’ as one of his reasons for wanting to abolish the Department of Education. Trump wants to reform public schools, and this reformation was explored more thoroughly in a previous article, but essentially he wants to purge schools of what he believes to be leftist indoctrination, including gender ideology and racial issues, and instead implement civic and “American focused” education instead. He views the Department of Education as a powerhouse of liberal ideology festering its way into our children’s minds, and he opposes that heavily. Trump and other critics of the Department advocate for education to go back to the complete power of the states, and for the federal government to leave education more so in the hands of parents. They also bring up the reality that federal education spending per student is some of the highest in the world, yet our education ranks and testing scores do not reflect that said reality. Some critics also argue that the laws the Department controls unfairly meddle too much in education affairs that should be left to the states and parents, especially when viewed with its meager spending.
How would The Department of Education be abolished? Well, the department getting abolished is highly unlikely, not impossible, but unlikely. The senate would need to pass a vote of 60, a supermajority. The Republicans are in control of the senate, but it would take every Republican and then some Democrats to pass the vote, so, again, unlikely with our modern political climate anyways. Even if Trump can’t get the law passed, his administration still holds power of the Department, and can, lets say, fire employees and hire the ones they want.
Many of the people who oppose this believe that the discourse from this would disproportionately impact poorer students, students with disabilities, and students in rural areas. Stemming from the fact large amounts of federal funding is allocated to these groups of people. Many of the opposition to the abolishment also argue that there isn’t any woke indoctrination going on in schools, and this is just absurd because teacher rights, curriculum, and other aspects of education isn’t in the dominion of the Department, lying more so with the states and the locals.
There’s also a question as to what would happen to student loans, as the Department oversees the amount of student loans and issues them out, as well as grants. Project 2025 states that they’ll just give these issues to the Department of Treasury.
