U.S
However, the agency has only moderate authority, and closing it down would encounter significant obstacles
Donald Trump Wants to Shut Down the Department of Education. Can He?. Donald Trump has argued he would use the department to further his priorities or close it.
Updated 2024-Oct-05 19:00
Department of Education” on the side of a gray office building. Silver letters spell “U.S.
Historian Gareth Davies noted that the Department of Education opposition revival among conservatives reflects the G.S shift from compassionate conservatism to culture wars. This move he mentioned may resonate with conservative activists but also allows Democrats to criticize the party for criticizing teachers and public schools.
According to Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute Republicans including Trump should focus on how pandemic school closures led by Democrats affected student learning instead of fixating on the Department of Education.
Hess stated that the party missed a chance to make a significant impact on education. Since its inception the Department of Education has faced opposition.
Nowadays Republicans are often linked to this opposition. However when it was first created the agency faced strong opposition from both political parties.
President Jimmy Carter founded the Department of Education in 1979 to keep a promise he made during his campaign to the National Education Association the biggest teachers union in the country.
Against the protests of his presidential transition team and numerous members of Congress including fellow Democrats he proceeded with it.
On the campaign trail Donald J. Trump has depicted the nation’s public schools as purveyors of an extreme ideology on gender and race.
One of his proposed remedies is to revive a Reagan era call to shut down the federal Department of Education founded in 1979.We will move everything back to the states where it belongs he said in one speech. They can individualize education and do it with the love for their children.
On the Democratic side vows to resist that effort have become a frequent applause line in speeches.
We are not going to let him eliminate the Department of Education that funds our public schools Vice President Kamala Harris said at the Democratic National Convention.
Lost in the back and forth over this relatively small federal agency is any discussion of what the department affectionately known in Washington policy circles as Ed actually does and what the practical impact would be of shuttering it if that is even possible.
How much power does it have?Perhaps paradoxically even as Mr. Trump has vowed to close Ed he has implied that he would use the agency’s investigatory powers to peer into local school practices around gender and race.
He wants to prevent schools from recognizing transgender identities and has said he will reward those that embrace an explicitly patriotic curriculum while defunding schools that teach critical race theory or gender indoctrination.
It is certainly possible for a president to create funding incentives around specific education priorities.
Still less than 10 percent of K 12 school funding passes through the agency. The vast majority of the money comes from state and local taxes.
And the department does not control local learning standards or reading lists. It does issue regulations on how civil rights laws apply to various groups of students including L.G. B. T. Q. Students those from racial minorities and girls. Still the Office for Civil Rights which guides schools on those issues and investigates claims of discrimination received less than 1 percent of the agency’s total budget this year.
Certain strong liberals such as Marian Wright Edelman the founder of the Children s Defense Fund were against the department s establishment.
They felt that one federal agency then called the Department of Health Education and Welfare should handle all aspects affecting children such as health care nutrition cash welfare and education.
Al Shanker leader of the American Federation of Teachers was also skeptical of this liberal idea. However Ed remained prominent in Washington DC for the following forty years winning favor with both Democrats and a sizeable number of Republicans.
Ed supervises many programs that promote bipartisan cooperation.
