Dana Goldstein
Appearances
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
And it rolled back a lot of this federal pressure around teacher evaluation and testing. And it returned a lot of the power over education to states and school districts.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
Which was the status quo when President Trump came into office for his first term.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
So when President Trump came into office for his first term, he appointed an education secretary, the billionaire philanthropist Betsy DeVos, who really embodies the term that Republican politics have taken on education. Betsy DeVos was not interested in politics. beefing up public education or beefing up the federal role.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
She had two main things, cultural conservatism, which was a big interest of hers, and also her goal, which she has said many times, was to get as much funding for public schools as possible in the hands of parents so they could make choices to go to private school or homeschool their kids. And since then, those ideas have only become much more popular in Republican politics.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
And that's in large part because of the COVID pandemic.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
And many parents, when their kids were doing remote learning from home and they watched what was being taught, did not like what they saw.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
So the parental rights or parent empowerment movement really took off over the past five years.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
Groups like Moms for Liberty, for example, was crusading against, you know, what they saw as woke, liberal ideology about race.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
or teaching students about transgender identities.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
President Trump astutely observed that this was a powerful cultural movement.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
And in his campaign for president in 2024, he embraced all of this.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
And he has become a lot more sophisticated, we think, in the second term and actually using the federal government to achieve these goals.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
Absolutely, Kim. That is the fundamental contradiction here. Even as he talks a lot about wanting to dismantle or even abolish the Federal Department of Education inside the building with his new education secretary, Linda McMahon. They are hard at work using the investigative powers of this agency in a muscular way to achieve these sort of culture war goals.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
And I think where this could all end up is that he can drastically cut this agency. He can strip it down. He can reduce it and dismantle it and roll some of its responsibilities over to other parts of the federal government. But he can keep a core sort of heart of the agency in place that will help him pursue his goals and fulfill his agenda.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
So I don't think that there will be much immediate impact on on public school students across the country or educators in K-12 schools. And the reason is, as we discussed, the 10% of K-12 public school funding that does come from the federal government is guaranteed to keep flowing unless Congress makes a major change. And we don't see that sort of happening right now.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
Well, I think it's important to step back and understand not just what it does, but also what it doesn't do. It does not set the curriculum of local public schools or reading lists or decide how many teachers to hire or what teachers are paid or what student discipline policy should be or what standardized tests should be given. All of that is controlled by state and local governments. Right.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
But I do think that understanding where President Trump's Republican Party is on education does does indicate where state and local education policy may be going because Republicans across the country share these goals. And this, by the way, was all telegraphed in Project 2025.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
Remember that conservative blueprint that came out during the campaign for what should be done in President Trump's second term. In the Project 2025 report, they lay out a clear plan for completely abolishing the federal role in K-12 education over the course of 10 years. Right now, we're just at the beginning of the process that they envision.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
However, if President Trump's movement is successful, if they keep winning elections, if he can bring Republicans in Congress along with his vision, it is possible that down the line, we really would see a vast reduction in federal support for public education. And remember, that's going to most impact low-income students and students with disabilities because that's where the money is going.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
Right now, we're still pretty far from that. Eighty-four percent of American children are in traditional public schools. But President Trump's actions on education over the past weeks and months make clear he is driving toward a drastically different vision for education in America.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
They do not do that. In fact, 90% of the funding for local schools comes from local and state governments. And only about 10% comes from Washington and flows through the Federal Department of Education. That 10% is important because it focuses on low-income students and children with disabilities.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
And what a lot of people may not realize is that over 70% of what the Department of Education does is administer the student aid program. So grants and loans that help students pay their college tuition. And they also fund education research. So attempts to figure out what are the best ways to teach students how to read better.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
They fund efforts to measure how American students are doing academically compared to students around the world. Okay, so we've got loans and research. And finally, the last thing they do is enforce anti-discrimination or civil rights laws.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
So these are the laws that attempt to make sure that students are not being discriminated against based on their gender, their race, their ethnicity, their religion. So for instance, if a school is not giving Black or Hispanic students equal access to gifted programs or advanced placement classes, they might be investigated. And that is very inconvenient.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
It is a pretty big deal for any school system. And they would essentially be pressured into changing these practices.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
Well, not really. I think we have to say, first of all, that only Congress can vote to abolish a cabinet agency. So President Trump, by signing an order like this, does not have the ability to abolish the Department of Education. But even if he somehow was able to abolish the department, it's not like all of these functions I just laid out would suddenly cease to exist.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
One way to think of the Department of Education is that it's like a bucket. And inside of it are all these programs and money that are appropriated and created by Congress. So if you do get rid of this bucket, you still have to deal with all the contents of the bucket.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
You know, in a lot of ways, Kim, it's symbolic. And like a lot of these executive orders, it's less about their legal force and more about announcing this administration's priorities. This particular order would be a loud and bold way of signaling that this president wants to majorly overhaul education in this country and drastically change the federal government's role.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
Well, I think to figure that out, we have to look at what President Trump has actually done so far with the agency because that gives us a lot of insight into how the next four years will go with him in office when it comes to education. Okay, so what has happened? To get a sense of that, we can actually look at what is going on inside the Department of Education building in Washington, D.C.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
There are people in there embedded from Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency Group. And what they are doing is really looking to slash budgets to decimate the research efforts of the agency. They are looking to lay off workers, and they have done so. And they are looking to replace some human work with artificial intelligence.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
Our reporting showed that they are particularly focused there on the call center that answers students' and parents' questions about federal financial aid, which you can imagine is super complex, gets into some really personal and private information about families. They are interested in handling way more of that with an AI chatbot, and they are actually attempting to build it internally.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
So they are very busy inside of the Department of Education right now.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
Yeah, that's part of it. But Kevin, it's about a lot more than just that. President Trump has a broader sort of MAGA vision for public education, which is really about battling what he and his allies see as woke ideology that has pervaded the nation's schools around issues like race, gender, sexuality, and American history. And we are already seeing this play out.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
And I will give you a couple of examples. Remember that investigative power of the Department of Education that I mentioned, which enforces anti-discrimination laws? They, the Trump administration, are already using that power, but in a very different, really polar opposite way. So, for instance...
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
They are investigating the Denver public schools because they had transformed a single girl's restroom in one high school into a non-binary restroom. And they are investigating whether this could potentially be considered a violation of girls' civil rights.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
They are looking into the Ithaca public schools, investigating a series of conferences that were held there that were for students of color and looking into an allegation that white students were not invited to these conferences, which were about diversity issues and considering whether that could be considered a violation of white students' rights.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
And they also, just late last week, President Trump signed an order that would attempt to withhold federal student loan forgiveness for public service careers from workers who are working at nonprofit organizations whose policies around immigration or around transgender issues buck President Trump's ideas on those issues.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
Well, we don't know if this will stand up legally in the courts, but that is the attempt, yes.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
Yes, absolutely. And part of why this is such a big change is that it used to be not that long ago that both Republicans and Democrats agreed that the federal government had a big role to play in education and holding schools accountable for doing a good job in educating students and raising test scores in math and in reading. Right.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
That consensus, which was not really controversial, has fallen apart with President Trump's Republican Party. The new highest value is not raising test scores, not holding schools accountable, but giving as much control as possible to individual parents. And in many ways, Kim, this is a vision that is at odds with the very reason the Department of Education was founded to begin with.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
So the federal government has played a role in education since the 19th century, researching education, trying to disseminate best practices for how teachers can do their jobs better. But there was no federal Department of Education as a separate cabinet agency until 1979. And the idea was controversial. It was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter, but even some Democrats opposed the idea.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
They didn't think it was necessary to have a whole separate bureaucracy to deal with education issues. And for President Ronald Reagan, the Department of Education was a huge sign of federal bloat, and he constantly talked about abolishing it.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
So a draft executive order attempting to dismantle the Federal Department of Education has been circulating in Washington, and we have seen it. And it's no surprise to us that this draft is out there. We've been hearing for many weeks now that President Trump will sign an order like this. In fact, several times we were sort of poised watching video of him sitting at the Resolute Desk,
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
However, over the decades, the Department of Education really became part of the firmament in Washington and enjoyed plenty of support from both Republicans and Democrats. And that's because the programs that it ran. works on, like Pell Grants that help students pay for college and money for disabled students. Educational supports in public schools are really popular.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
Yeah, absolutely. And for many years, this discussion, which had existed in the 70s and 80s about whether we need it, whether we want it, had kind of quieted down until the point under the Republican President George W. Bush in the early 2000s, the Republican Party was really united around the idea of a bigger federal role in education.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
You know, one of the things that's helpful to remember is that George W. Bush with his idea of compassionate conservatism was really focused on education.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
He had the idea that there was, quote, the soft bigotry, the bigotry of low expectations, of low expectations for many students in our nation's public schools, for low-income students, for Black and Hispanic and Native American students.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
And he really wanted to push out standardized tests into the nation's schools so he could measure how kids were doing and require teachers and principals to help kids do better.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
which, of course, today is remembered for being really controversial. Kind of draconian, really. Yes, because it required kids to take tests every year in math and reading, and it threatened to punish schools if the students didn't do well on the tests. And so it led to a lot of teaching to the test, and nobody likes that. Teachers don't like that. Parents don't like that. Right.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
But it was a really big bipartisan push under a Republican president to strengthen the federal role in education. So exactly the opposite of what's going on now with President Trump. I always have an image in my mind of, you know, what a big issue education was for President George W. Bush. You know, he was sitting on the morning of 9-11, 2001, reading a book to public school students.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
And it was part of his, you know, general emphasis on education. And it was at that moment reading the book to the children that an aide whispered in his ear to inform him of the attack on the World Trade Center.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
Yeah, President Obama agreed on a lot of the fundamentals with President Bush. He agreed that the federal government needed to hold schools accountable. He wanted to make those tests better and higher quality, but he also added some additional pressure around them. He created incentives for states to evaluate teachers according to how well their individual students did. did on those tests.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
in the Oval Office with executive orders that he was about to sign, thinking, is this the day? Is one of these pieces of paper the one that will attempt to abolish the agency? And so far, he hasn't done it. But it does seem that this is something that is in very serious consideration for him.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
So in other words, whether you got a positive or negative employee evaluation at the end of the year would be based around this. That was also incredibly controversial. But it's just notable to talk about how Republican and Democratic presidents for many years were really in support of a big federal role.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
Yeah. So what happened is that under President Bush and President Obama, all of this emphasis on standardized testing really became super unpopular. Democrats hated it. Republicans hated it. Teachers hated it. Parents hated it.
The Daily
Trump Takes Aim at the Department of Education
President Obama signed a law that was passed by Congress called the Every Student Succeeds Act.