After taking stock of the state of American education, the president determined dramatic action was needed. He set out to “cut red tape and promote better service for local school systems”; to “save tax dollars,” “eliminate bureaucratic layers,” and “earn improved educational services at less cost.”
He believed the “primary responsibility for education should rest with those States, Localities, and private institutions that have made our Nation’s educational system the best in the world.” And that we must “ensure that local communities retain control of their schools and education programs.”
To fulfill these goals, that president, Jimmy Carter, signed the Department of Education Organization Act into law in 1979.
President Donald Trump claims to share these goals, but instead of providing schools with resources that enable students to thrive, his administration is systematically dismantling the U.S. Department of Education.
As a result, President Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon will exacerbate existing problems—cutting off desperately needed resources, expanding the department’s bureaucracy, creating more red tape for students and schools to navigate, eroding trust in federal education policy writ large, and ultimately undermining public education as an institution.
Let me review some history. The cornerstones of federal support for American education are the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and Higher Education Act (HEA), which were first passed as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, along with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), first enacted under President Ford.
These laws made remarkable improvements in the access to, and quality of, education in America. They provided federal funding for schools in impoverished areas so that every American child, regardless of ZIP code, could have access to an education that could take them to new heights. They created accommodations for students with disabilities, recognizing that every child deserves the opportunity to receive an education that propels them forward. They helped narrow the gap in educational outcomes between low-income urban and rural students, and those in affluent suburbs. And many public schools were able to open their very first libraries thanks to ESEA funding.
But despite those improvements, the government lacked a unified infrastructure to administer these programs in a clear and efficient manner. Crucially, there was no single, visible, high-ranking government official responsible for coordinating federal education resources. Educators and advocates had to wade through bureaucracies in several different offices and agencies just to figure out who was responsible for addressing their problems. Progress had been made, but the system was still disorganized.
So Congress wrote and President Carter signed the bipartisan bill to create the Department of Education. In Carter’s words, it was to establish “a direct, unobstructed relationship between those who administer aid-to-education programs and those who actually provide education in our country.”
The Trump administration’s plan is to re-disorganize education policy: to take several core functions of Education and spread them throughout the Departments of Labor, State, Interior, and Health and Human Services without any congressional consultation or oversight. Secretary McMahon claims this is primarily to “[cut] through layers of red tape in Washington.”
Does the administration seriously believe it will be more efficient for schools to navigate not one, but four separate federal entities? Are they under the impression that asking a dwindling number of increasingly demoralized federal workers to administer additional programs they are not familiar with, or to split time between multiple agencies, will make anything easier for anyone?
To understand the administration’s true aim, it is helpful to consult the policy playbook that has guided their work since President Trump took office last January: Project 2025, the manifesto that President Trump immediately embraced after taking office.
Project 2025 calls for not only dismantling the Department of Education, but eliminating Head Start, ending Title I grants to low-income students, weakening civil rights protections, shifting public funds to private schools, and minimizing funding for students with disabilities. Each of these positions would be devastating by themselves. But together, they would all but destroy public education in this country. That is their ultimate goal.
Nine in ten American students attend public school. We, as a society, are richer both culturally and economically for investing in it. We are healthier, more prosperous, kinder, wiser, and safer through education. It is the surest path to financial success, to upward social mobility, to a life of stability and comfort—it is truly the “great equalizer,” in the words of Horace Mann. My mother worked in the sweatshops of New Haven. My parents encouraged me to get a good education so I did not have to live like them—a proverb many children from disadvantaged backgrounds have internalized.
Republicans plainly dislike this route to opportunity and equality. There is no other way to interpret the Trump administration’s plans to dismantle the department and decimate public education. All the progress we have made could be lost—and the consequences go far beyond test scores. It weakens our democracy, it weakens our global competitiveness, and it empowers billionaires who want the public uninformed and exploited.
I leave you with the following comment from President Johnson—who, as a young man, had himself been a teacher in a high-poverty public school that served Latino students. When he signed the bill providing funding for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, he said:
“We have always believed that our people can stand on no higher ground than the school ground, or can enter any more hopeful a room than the classroom. We blend time and faith and knowledge in our schools—not only to create educated citizens, but also to shape the destiny of this great Republic.”