In Opposition To The Will Of Most Americans, The GOP Is Dismantling To Department Of Education
All through the 2024 election cycle Trump disavowed Project 2025. As soon as he won, he embraced their personnel and their stated on agenda. On page 319, they wrote “Federal education policy should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated.” On page 350, they wrote “Title I is the largest portion of federal taxpayer spending under this federal education law, and the section provides additional taxpayer resources to schools or groups of schools in lower income areas… Over a 10-year period, the federal spending should be phased out and states should assume decision-making control over how to provide a quality education to children from low-income families.” Trump and Musk are moving even faster!
There’s plenty of current polling data showing how Americans feel about Musk and Trump’s— and basically the whole GOP’s— plan to dismantle and abolish the Department of Education. A Data for Progress poll last month found that 61% of likely voters said they oppose Trump's plan to issue an executive order abolishing the Department of Education, while 34% support it— again that third of the population who its just braindead MAGA/fascist. This poll shows opposition across various demographics, including age, gender, race, and educational status. Not all that surprisingly, 59% of self-identified Republicans support the plan, making them the only demographic with majority support.
At the same time a New America poll was released by Voss Research and Strategy revealing that 55% of American adults oppose eliminating the Department of Education, while 26% favor it, and 17% are unsure. This poll highlighted a partisan divide, with 89% of Democrats opposing the move and 51% of Republicans favoring it. Since then an Economist p[oll by YouGov this week indicates that only 17% of respondents want the Department of Education eliminated, even stronger opposition to Trump's efforts as of right now. In short, there and other current polls show, collectively that a majority of Americans, ranging from 55% to 63%, oppose the Republican wet dream to dismantle the Department of Education.
Yesterday, Elizabeth Warren issued a statement on Trump’s latest overreach: “This is a code red for every public school student, parent, and teacher in this country. Trump is telling public school kids in America that their futures don’t matter. Billionaires like Trump and Musk won’t feel the difference when after school programs are slashed, class sizes go up, and help for families to pay for school gets cut. But working families, students, and teachers will pay a heavy price.”
That sums up nicely the progressive reaction to the NY Times report on Trump’s executive order instructing his ridiculous Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin dismantling the agency. “The department cannot be closed without the approval of Congress, which created it,” wrote Michael Bender, Nolan Kanno-Youngs and Zach Montague. “But the Trump administration has already taken steps to narrow the agency’s authority and significantly cut its work force while also telegraphing plans to try and shutter it… Republican attempts to shutter the agency date back to the 1980s. But the push gained steam in recent years after a parents’ rights movement grew out of a backlash to school policies and shutdowns during the coronavirus pandemic. That movement, which includes key pro-Trump, grass-roots activists, expanded around opposition to progressive agendas that promoted mandating certain education standards and inclusive policies for LGBTQ students. [Right-wing] Activists contended that these policies undermined parental rights and values.”
Public schools are mostly funded by taxes collected by states and municipalities that, by definition, already have control over that money. The federal government accounts for about 10 percent of total school funding, but that is distributed by the Education Department largely according to federal law— not the discretion of the president.
That balance of power in Washington explains, at least in part, why no modern president has ever tried to unilaterally shut down a federal department. The Education Department was created by an act of Congress in 1979, and federal lawmakers would have have to approve of eliminating it.
…Trump’s order is expected to spark another legal fight for the administration, which is already embroiled in multipole lawsuits.
… Republican lawmakers have already shown unusual deference to Trump, even as he has taken steps to challenge Congress’ authority in several areas while flexing his own. Notably, he directed agencies not to spend funds already authorized by Congress on programs he dislikes, a move that is banned under current law and may be unconstitutional.
…The Education Department has already reoriented itself to pick up many of Trump’s goals by winding down investigations started under the previous administration; starting new ones reflecting its own priorities; rolling back protections for transgender students; and cracking down on diversity programs.
One organization that will be in the forefront of taking Trump to court over this is Public Citizen, which asked, yesterday of Trump, “Do he and his sycophants hate children?” Tgheythen clarified what the Department of Education does “and the perils in store for our nation’s children and our country’s future if Trump is allowed to dismantle the agency”:
Administer the federal student loan program. (If you or anyone you care about has— or was hoping to get— a student loan, watch out.)
Provide benefits to more than 25 million low-income children. (Smaller class sizes, extra math instruction, preschool programs, and more are now at risk.)
Ensure that special education programs are available in America’s schools. (These programs are essential to literally millions of children all across the country with disabilities and special needs.)
Prohibit discrimination in our nation’s schools. (This is the one that really gets Trump and MAGA riled up.)
“Trump and MAGA have turned schools into a culture war battlefield, with fixations on thing like which books are or aren’t available in school libraries, what can and can’t be taught in classrooms, who hires and fires teachers or decides how much they get paid, which students can play which sports on which teams, and whether or not to close schools during public health emergencies… [W]hy are Trump and his cronies so bent on eliminating the Department of Education? Because spending less on education helps pay for their tax cuts for billionaires and Big Business. Because they want to offer up our nation’s schools— and our nation’s children— as yet another sacrifice on the altar of corporate privatization. Because they’ve twisted themselves into thinking that public education— or at least the federal government’s commitment to it— is just for poor people, Black and Brown kids, children with disabilities, and others they simply don’t consider worthwhile. (As if there aren’t millions and millions of families sending their kids to public schools throughout the parts of the country they consider ‘real’ America.)”
They concluded: “This is insane. Any member of Congress, Democrat or Republican, who doesn’t fight it— for the sake of our nation’s children or even just to preserve their own constitutional authority— is a disgrace.”
I might mention at this point that every single Republican voted to confirm MacMahon but not even the Democratic confirmation monkeys— John Fetterman, Elissa Slotkin, Ruben Gallego, Jeanne Shaheen, Gary Peters or Mark Kelly— did.
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