What would Donald Trump do in the realm of K-12 if voters return the former president to the White House?
He and his campaign haven鈥檛 outlined many specifics, but a recently published document that details conservative plans to completely remake the executive branch offers some possibilities. Among them:
- Title I, the $18 billion federal fund that supports low-income students, would disappear in a decade.
- Federal special education funds would flow to school districts as block grants with no strings attached, or even to savings accounts for parents to use on private school or other education expenses.
- The U.S. Department of Education would be eliminated.
- The federal government鈥檚 ability to enforce civil rights laws in schools would be scaled back.
The proposals are contained in a comprehensive policy agenda that鈥檚 part of a Heritage Foundation-led initiative called , which includes nearly 900 pages of detailed plans for virtually every corner of the federal government and a database of potential staffers for a conservative administration. It will also feature a playbook for the first 180 days of a new term.
The agenda is designed to be ready for a conservative president to implement at the start of a new administration next year, depending on the outcome of November鈥檚 election.
Project 2025 involves former Trump administration officials and other allies of the former president, as well as . One of those is Moms for Liberty, the Florida-based group that rose to national prominence fighting school boards over COVID-19 safety protocols and has endorsed conservative school board candidates across the country in recent years.
On the campaign trail, Trump has said that parents should elect school principals, called for merit pay for teachers and the abolition of teacher tenure, promised to cut federal funding to schools pushing progressive social ideas, and pledged to establish universal school choice.
But because he鈥檚 released little in the way of detailed plans, Project 2025鈥檚 offers the clearest picture yet of the education priorities Trump could pursue in a second term, and how a second Trump administration could use the federal government to advance conservative policies like private school choice and parents鈥� rights that have taken root in many Republican-led states.
Despite the involvement of so many Trump allies, the former president鈥檚 campaign hasn鈥檛 officially endorsed Project 2025. His campaign didn鈥檛 respond to requests for comment from 澳门跑狗论坛.
Nothing more than 鈥榓 statistics-gathering agency鈥�
Project 2025鈥檚 education agenda revolves around shrinking the federal government鈥檚 footprint on public education.
鈥淭he federal government should confine its involvement in education policy to that of a statistics-gathering agency that disseminates information to the states,鈥� the document reads.
Under the Project 2025 agenda, states would be able to opt out of federal education programs, whose 鈥渞egulatory burden far exceeds the federal government鈥檚 less than 10 percent financing share of K鈥�12 education,鈥� the document asserts.
States would also have full authority to decide how to spend Title I funds, which currently go to schools with large populations of low-income students.
Under the Project 2025 plan, those funds would first flow to states as 鈥渘o-strings-attached鈥� block grants before they鈥檙e phased out in a decade. Parents of students attending Title I schools could even have access to the federal funds in 鈥渕icro-education savings accounts鈥� to pay for private education or supplemental services for their kids. The plan outlines similar ambitions for funds distributed under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the nation鈥檚 special education law, though it doesn鈥檛 propose phasing them out.
鈥淭he future of education freedom and reform in the states is bright and will shine brighter when regulations and red tape from Washington are eliminated,鈥� the document reads.
Rick Hess, director of Education Policy Studies at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, said he鈥檚 sympathetic to the goal of reducing administrative requirements that accompany federal programs, but he hasn鈥檛 seen evidence that there鈥檚 enough support among congressional Republicans to end or radically transform Title I or IDEA.
(House Republicans approved a budget last year that would cut Title I by 80 percent, but that plan was bound to fail with Democrats in charge of the Senate and White House.)
鈥淚t is picking a fight where you risk getting portrayed as insensitive to the needs of low-income kids [and] kids with special needs,鈥� Hess said. 鈥淚鈥檓 not sure that the ratio of the bad publicity you risk to the likelihood of winning winds up paying off in the end.鈥�
While school districts would welcome less paperwork, 鈥渙ur members would not want reduced administrative burden to come at this cost. This is too high of a cost,鈥� said Noelle Ellerson Ng, associate executive director for advocacy and governance at AASA, The School Superintendents Association.
Project 2025 is 鈥渨ell packaged, but their ends aren鈥檛 focused on student learning and attainment. They are driven first by a focus on reducing the size of government and reducing spending,鈥� she said.
Title I and IDEA are the federal government鈥檚 primary mechanisms to ensure that schools that can鈥檛 raise much revenue from local property taxes have at least a baseline level of resources, said Katherine Dunn, who runs the Opportunity to Learn program for the Advancement Project, a national civil rights organization.
So, allowing those funds to flow to parents via savings accounts 鈥渞eally does move toward this idea that education is a personal good鈥� rather than 鈥渁 collective value,鈥� she said.
Relocating programs across government
With its vision of eliminating the Education Department, Project 2025 proposes moving existing education programs to other federal agencies.
IDEA would become the purview of the administration for community living within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Title I would transfer to DHHS鈥� administration for children and families before it鈥檚 ultimately phased out. The National Center for Education Statistics鈥攖he main data collection arm of the education department鈥攚ould become part of the U.S. Census Bureau.
The department鈥檚 office for civil rights鈥攚hich investigates potential civil rights violations in schools鈥攚ould move to the Justice Department and would only be able to enforce civil rights laws through litigation, ending its common practice of negotiating settlements with school districts to change their practices.
The office would also have to drop pending investigations under Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination, into allegations of discrimination based on students鈥� or employees鈥� sexual orientation or gender identity. In addition, the office would stop opening new Title IX investigations based on sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination.
(The Biden administration it considers sex discrimination to include sexual orientation and gender identity, and has proposed鈥攂ut continually delayed鈥攔ules that would make that definition part of federal regulations. Project 2025 proposes reverting to Title IX rules developed in the first Trump administration.)
The civil rights office would also stop investigating schools for 鈥渄isparate impact鈥� in school discipline鈥攖he idea that school discipline policies that disproportionately affect students in one racial or ethnic group might violate federal law, even if those policies are neutral on their face and applied evenhandedly.
鈥淯nfortunately, federal overreach has pushed many school leaders to prioritize the pursuit of racial parity in school discipline indicators鈥攕uch as detentions, suspensions, and expulsions鈥攐ver student safety,鈥� the Project 2025 Education Department document reads.
Eliminating disparate impact as the basis for civil rights investigations removes the only avenue available for people to challenge school policies whose impact might be racially discriminatory, said Dunn of the Advancement Project, who was previously a lawyer in the Education Department鈥檚 office for civil rights.
鈥淵ou don鈥檛 address racism that happens in our schools just through these individual different treatment investigations, although those are critically important as well,鈥� she said, referring to probes into allegations of individual discrimination.
Further, moving OCR to the Justice Department endangers a source of technical assistance to school districts, Dunn said.
鈥淚t鈥檚 staffed by people who deal with the application of civil rights laws in schools day to day,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e ... really thinking about remedies that make sense in the context of education.鈥�
What a new administration can do without Congress
Many of the topline K-12 priorities outlined in Project 2025鈥攕uch as eliminating the Department of Education, using federal funds to expand school choice, and passing a federal parents鈥� bill of rights similar to those passed in a number of Republican-led states鈥攚ould require congressional approval, making them a heavy lift.
Other changes could happen with executive action alone. Those include:
- Stopping the Biden administration鈥檚 rulemaking to assert that Title IX bans sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination, and halting enforcement of the new rule if it鈥檚 been completed by next year;
- Limiting the scope of new and pending civil rights office investigations;
- Rescinding an Obama-era regulation that requires some districts to use a portion of their IDEA funds to address the root causes of racial disparities in students identified for special education; and
- Rolling back a 2022 Biden administration regulation that added requirements for new charter schools seeking federal startup funds.
Project 2025 is a sign that Republicans, once they鈥檝e returned to power, intend to use the tools of the executive branch more deliberately to achieve their education goals, said Hess, who is a regular 澳门跑狗论坛 Opinion contributor.
Traditionally, he said, that鈥檚 something Democratic presidents have done better than Republicans, who tend to 鈥渉it the pause button鈥� on Democratic changes rather than aggressively pursue their own.
The Project 2025 approach 鈥渋s kind of new,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd that鈥檚 probably a consequence, because even folks that used to be regarded as mainstream, kind of measured conservatives 10 or 20 years ago, they鈥檝e gotten so frustrated by what feels like a rigged game they鈥檝e been radicalized.鈥�
