Nothing scary about this at all.
Update: apparently already backtracked: https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-preparing-executive-order-telling-education-secretary-dissolve/story?id=119499614
This might be the normal Trump tactic of floating horrible ideas, so don’t be surprised if it comes back later.
It’s easier to tear something down than to build something up.
On the off chance America ever has a presidential election again, whoever wins is gonna have a gargantuan job of fixing everything this asshole has dismantled.
The damage being done this time around isn’t fixable in a single term even with full congressional support.
It’s easier to tear something down than to build something up.
True, but more precisely it’s an order of magnitude harder to build than it is to destroy. Should there be a democratic administration after this they will find it impossible to put all these pieces back together in 4 years, and will get blamed for it like they always do, and lose again.
The right has out themselves into a position where destruction and failure are a future political asset for them.
Yeah, I don’t honestly know how we could ever fix it. Because what do you even focus on? Fixing the system? Providing relief for those suffering?
Republicans sure as shit would die before doing either and Democrats aren’t effective most of the time. And when they try to be, every fucking thing gets blocked by shit bag Republicans.
As the resident education PhD in the room, I’ll just reiterate that this is bad, although it’s complicated and it sounds like a lot of the mandatory things (e.g FAFSA for college) would be moved to Treasury or other departments. It’s not as bad as getting rid of schools entirely, and it does have the added benefit of defanging Trump’s education goals. Just, you know, there won’t be transgender kids playing in girls sports if there’s no girl’s sports anymore since schools aren’t required by the feds to have it.
The biggest blow will mostly be in civil rights and in research, honestly. Civil rights because it’s funding is used as leverage to get schools not to discriminate on race, class, gender, etc, in so much so that you could even say sexual abuse under Title IX prevents teachers from diddling the kids. IDEA is also under them (that’s the disabilities bill for schools) so you may see less or no additional assistance for people with autism, intellectual disabilities, etc… In about a decade or two will actually lead to more crime and incarceration as education has a direct effect on reducing poverty and giving people purpose.
As you research, the DOE is a major contributor to education research, much in the same way as CDC was for health. I got my dissertation done using their data, and it is solid. They also provide grants to thousands of projects, and you can thank a lot of advancements in education to it, like improvements in pedagogy and establishing importance of after school programs and such. The system had some flaws, like rewarding grants based on established people only and ignoring young progressive researchers, but it was still better than nothing.
I think whatever damage he does can be undone and the department can be made better than it was because even I admit there’s bloat and the current system could be a lot better if it wasn’t so entrenched in neolib values. Lots of bullshit accountability stuff, similar to how we require hoops to jump through with welfare. Just, in the short term, it’s going to be extra hard for parents in red states and rural counties in particular because they receive the most aid from the department.
Thank you for this clear-eyed and thorough response. I appreciate you.
The rural areas will just replace public schools with Christian schools.
Unconstitutional
The education department is constitutional due to a loophole in the commerce section I believe. Though its heavily debated as to whether it should be a states right.
That requires a constitution
We got one. We are just watching one party testing the limits of the social contract that keeps this place going. I’m talking about how long people will abide their federal courts and Congress being shat upon.
Once this happens, isn’t his threat about funding for schools that allow protests pretty much hollow?
He will have the police arrest them instead of the threat of getting expelled or have the national guard shoot them. Just like they did during the Civil Rights Movement and during the Vietnam War.
There’s a muralist, Mike Alewitz, who survived the shooting. There WAS an NPR interview with him that went over it in depth but unfortunately (and rather concerningly to be honest) it seems to have been removed.
Yeah, because that’s what we need. A stupider populace.
Tbf that is exactly what the Republicans want
It requires an act of Congress to dismantle it completely, so we’re about to see just how much the R’s in Congress either have bought into Trump’s vision or think there is value in keeping his support. It’s one thing to not say anything when a bunch of normal people are fired. It’s a different thing to publicly vote to dismantle something normal need and care about.
Yes, and that was HR 899, proposed in the House on Jan 31. More then a month ago.
Did y’all miss that?
Already rescinded.This plan was?
Thank you
What exactly will be impacted? I honestly have no idea what they currently do outside extra funding for states to allow everything to function properly. Also what are the American people benefitting from this exactly? As far as were concerned it’s no change to us, so where is all this money going now, outside the pockets of some rich person? So gut everything and higher our taxes? I’m assuming state taxes will need to go higher to supplement more money for schooling which means even higher taxes again? I’m super thrilled my kids are the perfect age to see exactly the impact this will have on them soon… I wish I could leave so bad.
They run the FAFSA student aid application system and manage trillions of dollars of student loans (Pell grants, etc). They provide guidance and funding to state education systems.
Dismantling it will cause chaos in the student loan world. Who now owns the debt? (likely given to friends of Trump to get rich off of) Who approves new debt? (likely private loan firms who charge higher rates and don’t approve high risk loans) Who will manage the existing network of thousands of colleges to help get aid to students? (likely nobody)
Dismantling it also allows Republican states to further implement religious education and scrubbing from education curricula anything that isn’t about straight, white people doing good things.
I mean education is prosecuted at the state level anyway.
