WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump’s education vision revolves around a single goal: ridding America’s schools of perceived “wokeness” and “left-wing indoctrination.”
The president-elect wants to ban lessons on gender identity and structural racism. He wants to abolish diversity and inclusion offices. He wants to keep transgender athletes out of girls’ sports.
Throughout his campaign, the Republican portrayed schools as a political battleground to be won back from the left. Now that he has won the White House, he plans to use federal money as leverage to advance his vision for education across the country.
Trump’s education plan includes cutting funding to schools that oppose him on a variety of issues.
On his first day in office, Trump repeatedly said he would cut funding to “any school that forces critical race theory, transgender madness and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content on our children.” During the election campaign, Trump said he would not give “a penny” to schools that required vaccinations or masks.
He said that would happen through executive action, although even some of his supporters say he lacks the authority to make such rapid and sweeping changes.
Trump’s opponents say his vision of America’s schools is distorted by politics – that the kind of liberal indoctrination he rails against is a fiction. They say his proposals would undermine public education and harm the students who need schools’ services most.
“It’s fear-based, non-factual information, and I would call it propaganda,” said Wil Del Pilar, senior vice president of Education Trust, a research and advocacy organization. “There is no evidence that students are taught to question their sexuality in school. There is no evidence that our American education system is full of lunatics.”
Trump’s program calls for “massive funding preferences” for states and schools that end teacher tenure, establish universal school choice programs and allow parents to choose school leaders.
Perhaps his most ambitious promise is to completely shut down the U.S. Department of Education, a goal for decades of conservative politicians who claim it has been infiltrated by “radicals.”
America’s K-12 public schools receive about 14% of their revenue from the federal government, mostly from programs for low-income students and special education. The majority of the schools’ money comes from local taxes and state governments.
Colleges rely more heavily on federal money, particularly the grants and loans the government provides to students to cover their tuition.
Trump’s most powerful tool to put schools’ money at risk is his power to enforce civil rights laws – the Department of Education has the power to cut federal funding to schools and colleges that fail to comply with civil rights laws.
The president cannot immediately defund a huge number of districts, but if he targets some through civil rights investigations, others are likely to join, said Bob Eitel, president of the conservative Defense of Freedom Institute and an education official during Trump’s first term. That power could be used to take action against schools and colleges that have diversity and inclusion offices or that are accused of anti-Semitism, Eitel said.
“This is not a loss of funding from day one,” Eitel said, referring to Trump’s campaign promises. “But at the end of the day, the president is going to get his way on this issue because I think there are some real legal issues.”
Trump has also hinted at possible legislation to fulfill some of his promises, including fining universities over diversity initiatives.
To force colleges to close diversity programs — which Trump said amounts to discrimination — he said he would “propose a measure that would fine them the entire amount of their endowment.”
His platform also calls for a up-to-date, free online university called the American Academy to be funded through “taxation, fines and lawsuits against overly large private university foundations.”
During his first term, Trump occasionally threatened to cut money from schools that defied him, including those that were leisurely to reopen during the COVID-19 pandemic and colleges that he accused of restricting free speech .
Most of his threats failed, although he managed to get Congress to impose a tax on wealthy university endowments and his Education Department made sweeping changes to campus sexual assault rules.
Universities hope that their relationship with the government will not be as hostile as Trump’s rhetoric suggests.
“Education was an easy target in the campaign,” said Peter McDonough, general counsel for the American Council on Education, an association of university presidents. “But a partnership between higher education and government will be better for the country than an attack on education.”
Trump’s threats of harsh punishment appear to contradict another of his education pillars – removing the federal government from schools. In closing the Department of Education, Trump said he would “return all education work and supplies to the states.”
“We will end education from Washington, DC,” Trump said on his website last year. In his platform, he promised to ensure that schools were “free from political interference.”
Instead of letting states and schools decide their stance on polarizing issues, Trump is proposing blanket bans that fit his vision.
Taking a neutral stance and letting states decide would not fulfill Trump’s campaign promises, said Max Eden, senior fellow at AEI, a conservative think tank. Trump, for example, plans to rescind President Joe Biden’s administration policies that expanded Title IX protections to LGBTQ+ students. And Trump would go further, promising a nationwide ban on transgender women in women’s sports.
“Trump really wanted to keep boys out of girls’ sports. He wasn’t about letting boys in blue states play girls’ sports if they wanted to,” Eden said.
Trump also wants to have a say in school curriculum and promises to fight for “patriotic” education. He promised to reinstate his 1776 commission, which he established in 2021 to promote patriotic education. The panel produced a report that called progressivism, along with fascism, a “challenge to American principles.”
In addition to these efforts, Trump is proposing a up-to-date certification body to certify teachers “who represent patriotic values.”
Few of its biggest education goals can be achieved quickly, and many would require up-to-date action from Congress or federal processes that typically take months.
In the nearer term, he plans to rescind executive orders issued by Biden, including one promoting racial equity across the federal government. He is also expected to work quickly to revoke or rewrite Biden’s Title IX rules, although finalizing those changes would require a longer rulemaking process.
Trump has not elaborated on his plans for student loans, although he has called Biden’s cancellation proposals illegal and unfair.
Most of Biden’s signature education initiatives have been suspended by courts amid legal challenges, including a proposal for sweeping loan cancellation and a more generous loan repayment plan. Those plans could be revoked or rewritten once Trump takes office.
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