“One factor I’ll be doing very early within the administration is closing up the Division of Schooling in Washington, DC, and sending all schooling and schooling work it wants again to the states,” Trump mentioned in a 2023 video outlining his schooling coverage objectives. “We wish them to run the schooling of our youngsters as a result of they’ll do a a lot better job of it. You possibly can’t do worse.”
Trump on Tuesday nominated his former Small Enterprise Administration head (and former wrestling government) Linda McMahon to be the schooling secretary. Closing the DOE wouldn’t be simple, however it isn’t unattainable — and even when the division stays open, there are definitely methods Trump and McMahon may transform schooling in america. Right here’s what’s attainable.
Can Trump really shut the DOE?
Nevertheless, “It will take an act of Congress to take it out,” Don Kettl, professor emeritus and former dean of the College of Public Coverage on the College of Maryland, instructed Vox. “It will take an act of Congress to radically restructure it. And so the query is whether or not or not there’d be urge for food on the Hill for abolishing the division.”
That’s not such a straightforward prospect, though the Republicans look set to take slender management of the Senate and the Home. That’s as a result of abolishing the division “would require 60 votes except the Republicans abolish the filibuster,” Jal Mehta, professor of schooling on the Harvard Graduate College of Schooling, instructed Vox.
With out the filibuster rule, laws would wish a easy majority to move, however senators have been hesitant to eliminate it lately. With the filibuster in place, Republicans would wish some Democratic senators to hitch their efforts to kill the division. The chance of Democratic senators supporting such a transfer is sort of nonexistent.
Which means the push to unwind the division might be largely symbolic. And that’s the best-case situation, Jon Valant, director of the Brookings Establishment’s Brown Middle on Schooling Coverage, instructed Vox. Based on Valant, dismantling it will concurrently injury the US schooling system whereas additionally failing to perform Trump’s said objectives.
Closing the division “would wreak havoc throughout the nation,” Valant mentioned. “It will trigger horrible ache. It will trigger horrible ache in components of the nation represented by congressional Republicans too.”
A lot of that ache would probably fall on the nation’s most weak college students: poor college students, college students in rural areas, and college students with disabilities. That’s as a result of the division’s civil rights powers assist it to help state schooling methods in offering specialised assets to these college students.
Moreover, a lot of what Trump and MAGA activists declare the company is accountable for — like instructing vital race idea and LGBTQ “ideology” — isn’t really the purview of the DOE; issues like curriculum and trainer alternative are already the area of state departments of schooling. And solely about 10 % of federal public schooling funding flows to state boards of schooling, in response to Valant. The remaining comes primarily from tax sources, so states and native faculty districts are already controlling a lot of the funding construction of their particular public schooling methods.
“I discover it just a little bewildering that the US Division of Schooling has grow to be such a lightning rod right here, partly as a result of I don’t know the way many individuals have any concept what the division really does,” Valant mentioned.
Even with out actually shutting the doorways to the federal company, there may very well be methods a Trump administration may hole the DOE and do important injury, Valant and Kettl mentioned.
The administration may require the company to chop the roles of company workers, significantly those that ideologically disagree with the administration. It may additionally appoint officers with restricted (or no) schooling experience, hampering the division’s day-to-day work.
Trump officers may additionally try adjustments to the division’s larger schooling practices. The division is one among a number of state and nongovernmental establishments concerned in school accreditation, for instance — and Home Majority Chief Steve Scalise (R-LA) has threatened to weaponize the accreditation course of in opposition to universities he believes to be too “woke.”
Lastly, Trump may use the division’s management position to have an effect on coverage not directly: “There’s energy that comes from simply speaking to states what you wish to see” being taught in colleges, Valant mentioned. “And there are a whole lot of state leaders across the nation who appear able to observe that lead.”
Trump’s plans for the division will probably grow to be clearer throughout McMahon’s affirmation hearings. She has been an advocate for the college alternative motion, and posted reward for the hands-on schooling gained by way of apprenticeships shortly earlier than her nomination was made public.
Replace, November 20, 11:45 am ET: This story was initially revealed on November 13 and has been up to date to replicate Linda McMahon’s nomination for schooling secretary.