During President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign, he promoted dismantling the U.S. Department of Education (DOE). The department was officially established in 1980 with 2025 marking its 45 year and possibly final year due to calls made by the president. I believe that this could represent a serious change in our education system, and not one for the better.
In an article written by Inside Higher Ed talking about President Trump’s order to abolish the DOE, they mention that Trump believes the agency is growing too big and interfering with state and local authorities. Plus, arguing the “agency’s existence violates the Constitution (because the document doesn’t mention education) and is a prime example of federal bloat and excess”. This doesn’t make any sense because how could an agency founded over 40 years ago just now happen to be unconstitutional? Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers, spoke in an interview about their feelings on Trump’s call to dismantle the DOE.
“The Department of Education, and the laws it is supposed to execute, has one major purpose: to level the playing field and fill opportunity gaps to help every child in America succeed,” Weingarten said. “No one likes bureaucracy, and everyone’s in favor of more efficiency, so let’s find ways to accomplish that. But don’t use a ‘war on woke’ to attack the children living in poverty and the children with disabilities in order to pay for vouchers and tax cuts for billionaires.”
For years the DOE has oversaw funding for public schools, administering student loans and running programmes to help low-income students. The agency is a representation of how our government should work and now there is a plan to cut its workforce in half as Trump considers an executive order that would shut it down altogether. According to BBC News, although Trump wants to shut down the department, this would require an act of congress which is plausible because Republicans run both the senate and the house. Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, explains why the administration is planning to lay off half the DOE.
“Donald Trump and Linda McMahon (United States Secretary of Education) know they can’t abolish the Department of Education on their own but they understand that if you gut it to its very core and fire all the people who run programs that help students, families and teachers, you might end up with a similar, ruinous result,” Murray said in a statement Tues., March 11.
Myself along with 55 percent of adult Americans oppose the dismantling of the DOE while 17 percent are not sure according to a national poll conducted by New America. There is a divide being created by issues that really affect our government. Education expert Wendy A. Paterson, a professor and dean at Buffalo State University’s School of Education, is part of the 55 percent of Americans who believe abolishing the DOE will cause serious problems in our government.
“There’s an intimate relationship between our schools and the society that we create and that we pass along to our children, and it’s that important,” Paterson said. “So if we don’t have a federal organization that acknowledges the importance of schools and post-secondary education and the right of all children to have access to education, what are we saying about democracy?”
