Trump administration threatens students with increased inequality in exchange for a “patriotic” education

By Logan Monteleone

Business and Distribution Manager

Regardless of the disadvantages and differences many individuals face, all students in the U.S. deserve equal access to a quality public education that provides them with the materials and resources they need to learn effectively.

However, these basic principles regarding educational needs are not a necessity to the Trump administration or the Heritage Founwhen it comes the the role of the Department of Education.

By declaring the Dept. of Ed. an ineffective money-wasting engine for the federal government to indoctrinate American children with “woke” ideologies that he plans to close upon reentering office, the future of education during Trump’s upcoming term is a grim one.

Many students and families, especially minority, low-income, and disabled groups will lose vital support provided by the department.

In accordance with the ideas laid out in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 plan, Trump wants to defund schools that recognize transgender identities and teach critical race theory. By contrast, he wants to reward schools that abide by an “explicitly patriotic curriculum,” according to the New York Times.

A recent Education Week article explains how the nearly half-century old department works, describing its different offices and the way that each respectively focuses on policy for K-12 schools, support for students with disabilities, and protections against discrimination based on identity. 

If Trump were to successfully close the department, programs that provide necessary support to disadvantaged students and students with various learning differences, disabilities, and English as a second language students would suffer.

Current programs aid students from low-income communities, such as Maryland’s Kent County school district, who already face barriers to their learning.

Debt relief programs established under the Biden administration will likely be eliminated, disproportionately affecting minority students. 

According to Forbes, “2022 data from LendingTree indicates that Black families hold the highest amount of student loan debt compared to other groups” and “student loan debt relief efforts can be a powerful tool to…close the racial wealth gap.”

Eliminating the department and its programs would also negatively impact educators by reducing funding to support the hiring and retaining of teachers, threatening to decrease teaching staff sizes.

Trump and other Republicans have been advocating an increase in school choice and vouchers that provide students and their parents with options aside from attending local public schools, according to ABC News. 

While vouchers have been recognized for their potential to allow students in disadvantaged communities to access higher-quality public schools, the origins of vouchers are inextricably tied to the efforts of white families to send their children to segregated private schools instead of desegregated public ones after Brown v. Board of Education.

As current critics of school choice and voucher options argue, public schools are already under pressure due to underfunding and poor staffing. Diverting funds from public schools into voucher programs will add to the pressures of teacher shortages and lack of funding facing many public schools currently.

Trump would need congressional approval by a supermajority, or 60 votes in the Senate, to eliminate the Dept. of Ed. 

Northwestern University School of Law professor Andrew Stoltmann told Fox News Digital that Trump would need to receive the support of some Democrats in the Senate to close the department, which will “likely be impossible.”

Because of the challenge it would be to eliminate the department all together, Stoltmann said that Trump’s “best bet” is to appoint a Dept. of Ed. leader who will make sure the department fundamentally changes.

Trump recently nominated Linda McMahon to lead the Dept. of Ed. A co-founder of the World Wrestling Entertainment network with no background in teaching or experience in leading education policy and one of Trump’s earliest political donors, McMahon remains a notable financial-backer and figure in conservative policy. 

As chairwoman of both the super Political Action Committee American First Action and the America First Policy Group, McMahon has developed plans for significantly altering the Dept. of Ed.’s focus, including “stopping schools from ‘promoting inaccurate and unpatriotic concepts’ about American history surrounding institutionalized racism, and expanding voucher programs that direct more public funds to parents to spend on home-schooling, online classes, or at private and religious schools.”

According to AXIOS, a professor of education and public policy said that Trump “replaces career experts in their fields with political appointees.”

By appointing yes-men and wealthy allies before qualified and competent individuals, Trump is setting up department leadership that does not prioritize providing students with a quality education.

According to the New York Times, McMahon would assume her role as leader of the department at “a time when school districts across the country are facing budget shortfalls, many students are not making up ground lost during the pandemic in reading and math, and many colleges and universities are shrinking and closing amid a larger loss of faith in the value of higher education.”

Strong federal funding and policy by passionate and qualified federal leadership is critical at a time when the nation’s learning environments — from Head Start programs to liberal arts colleges — are struggling with both longstanding education challenges and more recent changes in the post-pandemic world.

For students, it is impossible to feel pride in a leadership that does not value unbiased, equitable education for its citizens, but instead touts a system that comes from white, wealthy conservative Christian agendas like those pushed by McMahon and the America First Policy Institute, euphemized with terms and ideas like “patriotism.”

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Photo Caption: Trump tapped CEO of WWE Linda McMahon to head the Department of Education.

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