Trump's Education Platform

Take it seriously but not literally

Donald Trump says he wants to close down the U.S. Department of Education. This has been a conservative talking point for decades, but it’s taken on additional resonance this year as both conservatives and liberals take it literally.

I think that’s the wrong approach.

For anyone who want to know more about the legal, political, and logistical hurdles it would take to actually close down the Department of Education, I’d recommend this overview from Chalkbeat. As the article notes, the President can’t unilaterally shut it down; that would require an act of Congress. Trump is likely to have a unified Republican Congress behind him, but they will have a lot on their plates—taxes and immigration for starters, not to mention all the appointments and nominations. Closing down the Department of Education is a talking point, but it’s not high on their priority list.

As Kevin Drum points out, the Department of Education’s main purpose is to hand out grants for low-income students, for special education students, for vocational and technical programs, for English learners, etc. They also collect education statistics, fund research, and investigate civil rights complaints. One reason Republicans have not shuttered the Department of Education in the past is they haven’t wanted to want to de-fund these types of programs or activities. In his first term, President Trump’s education budgets proposed to eliminate a few programs and cut spending somewhat, but it never went so far as to abolish the Department. Similarly, state-level Republicans regularly make noise about rejecting federal education funds, but no state has done it yet, largely because federal funds make up about 10% of school budgets in a normal year.

Trump and the congressional Republics could still end the Department of Education and shift its functions to other departments. Project 2025, for example, recommended shifting a lot of functions out of the Department of Education and into other federal agencies. For example, they proposed moving all Indian Education programs to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and they proposed moving the Department of Education’s statistical arm under the U.S. Census Bureau.

But the main reason to bet against this happening is that Republicans actually want to use the power of the federal government to enact their preferred policies. They say they want local control… and yet they also express their anger and frustration with how local school districts are running their schools. Republicans say they want the federal government out of local education… and yet they support using federal dollars to fund school choice programs.

Trump has this same streak of incoherence. His education platform says he wants to give parents more control over their child’s education; to empower parents and local school boards to hire and reward great principals and teachers, and also to fire the poor ones; to ensure classrooms are focused “not on political indoctrination, but on teaching the knowledge and skills needed to succeed -- reading, writing, math, science, arithmetic, and other truly useful subjects;” and to support more things like internships, career counseling, and project-based learning experiences.

But then he turns around and ends with this:

And one other thing I'll be doing very early in the administration is closing up the Department of Education in Washington D.C. and sending all education and education work and needs back to the States. We want them to run the education of our children, because they'll do a much better job of it. You can't do worse. We spend more money per pupil, by three times, than any other nation. And yet we're absolutely at the bottom. We're one of the worst. So you can't do worse. We're going to end education coming out of Washington D.C. We're going to close it up -- all those buildings all over the place and yet people that in many cases hate our children. We're going to send it all back to the States.

Did you notice the contradictions here? You can’t have local control except for all the things you don’t like. That’s not local control!

So I would strongly bet against Republicans taking a big swing at the Department of Education. Instead, I’d bet Trump’s team will look for its biggest education win on school choice programs, particularly in the 2025 tax fight. I also expect them to issue updated guidance documents, particularly around gender, and to use their bully pulpit to beat up on local schools whenever they can.

Not that they’re asking, but I would recommend they look for small-ball opportunities around early apprenticeships and work-based learning; supporting public school choice through magnet schools, charters, and open enrollment programs; reinvigorating school and district accountability systems; and improving transparency efforts around state test results and state report cards. It would also be good politics to support extending Social Security coverage to all state and local government workers. These aren’t bumper sticker slogans, but they could help improve lives.