Donald Trump on Education: Starving the Public Schools, Feeding Chaos
COVID did a number on public schools for sure regardless of which state is under consideration. NPR broadcasted a call-in segment on the radio this morning discussing a dramatic lapse in attendance nationwide this school year with ominous implications for the public school system. Schools are funded through average daily attendance figures, one reason for truant officers. Schools have to have students coming to class, or they have no reason to exist.
According to parents who called in, a limited sample with a chance to voice grievances to be sure, one thing they learned from the pandemic is this: They don’t need schools. They can get along better without them. Coming on the heels of a President who actively sabotaged public schools, parents who see no need for public schools are canaries in a coal mine.
What might happen to public schools if Donald Trump were to be re-elected? A way to speculate responsibly on this question is to look back on his philosophy of education expressed during his campaigns and to examine concrete actions his administration made during his term.
Another way is to consider what he has to say today about public schools on donaldjtrump.com. He has a page with a dozen or so issues listed, but none of them focuses on schools. In the section labeled “Protecting Parents Rights,” however, he says a mouthful. It’s sometimes hard to tell whether Trump is speaking as Trump (an “I”), about Trump (a “he”), or for Trump using a ghost Trump. In any case, the quote below reproduced in its entirety with my own emphasis markers from his website appears to express the core of his, what, values:
“President Donald J. Trump fought tirelessly to expand charter schools and school choice for America’s children. He secured permanent funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and protected free speech on college campuses. Now, Joe Biden and the radical left are using the public school system to push their perverse sexual, racial, and political material on our youth. President Trump will cut federal funding for any school or program pushing Critical Race Theory or gender ideology on our children. His administration will open Civil Rights investigations into any school district that has engaged in race-based discrimination. President Trump will veto the sinister effort to weaponize civics education, keep men out of women’s sports, and create a credentialing body to certify teachers who embrace patriotic values. President Trump will reward states and school districts that abolish teacher tenure for grades K-12 and adopt Merit Pay, cut the number of school administrators, adopt a Parental Bill of Rights, and implement the direct election of school principals by the parents.”
Anyone with an understanding of American public education since a federal department with an officer in the President’s Cabinet was created in 1867 knows that Trump’s claims and aspirations are hallucinations. Presidents, their Education Secretaries, and the non-political federal civil servants working on behalf of the Department of Education lack the Constitutional authority to do much for good or for bad, though Congress has force. Nonetheless, Trump’s values align with his committed voters with whom he is in a symbiotic relationship. For me that’s the real danger.
*****
During his 2015 presidential campaign and subsequent time in office, Donald Trump did not prioritize public education as much as other issues such as immigration and tax policy. His approach to public education, however, did reveal some, what, guiding principles that he might follow if re-elected.
In September, 2016, Trump made good on his promise to champion school choice. Speaking at the Cleveland Arts and Social Sciences Academy, a for-profit charter school in an African-American community, he announced his proposal to redirect public funds and channel them to privates, for-profits, and charters, a way to starve the public schools and feed those that break away. In his speech Trump thanked Ron Packard, the CEO of the for-profit company that founded the school. Packard is a national figure in the charter school movement active in supporting political campaigns.
The Hillary Clinton campaign shed the light of reality on Trump’s plan, saying Trump would “gut” nearly 30 percent of the federal education budget to fund private school vouchers, and “decimate public schools across America.” According to Clinton’s campaign, Trump would have to cut all federal Title I funding for poor students plus $5 billion in additional federal education funding.
In early 2018, an EdWeek report noted Congressional pushback on the President’s demands. This rejection did not slow Trump nor DeVos down in continuing to fight for the Lost Cause, an apt allusion because the Southern states after the Civil War resisted extending civil rights regarding public schools to children of freed slaves and continued to fight against integrated schools and equity even after the Brown vs Board of Education Supreme Court decision in 1954.
*****
On the campaign trail in 2016 Trump criticized the Common Core State Standards and vowed to repeal the standards, although the federal government has no authority to do such a thing. His administration encouraged states to reconsider or rebrand their education standards. In Trump world what one calls an object can be more important than the object itself, hardly the stance of a person serious about schools.
As regular readers of ltRRtl know, I have criticized the Common Core. But the argument that bureaucrats in Washington are “telling you how to manage your child’s education” is another hallucination. Individual states voluntarily adopted the Core Standards and implemented them according to state prerogatives. Such a fundamental misunderstanding or misrepresentation of these standards disqualifies this speaker from opining on whether of not they are a “disaster.” For my money this attack represents another effort to weaken public education. Of course, nothing came of it.
Betsy DeVos had one of the most conflicted confirmation hearings before the Senate of any cabinet officer. Vice President Mike Pence cast the 51st vote in favor of DeVos, making him the first U.S. Vice President ever to cast a tie-breaking vote for a Cabinet member. Reading about her record in this position is like stepping through the mirror and going down a rabbit hole; I’ll limit my comments to one topic.
In September, 2017, DeVos rolled back Obama-era guidance on how universities should handle sexual assault complaints on campus. The 2011 guidelines had instructed universities to use a “preponderance of the evidence” standard when adjudicating sexual assault complaints instead of the “clear and convincing evidence” standard, which requires a higher burden of proof and was used by some schools at the time. In July, Candice Jackson, the acting head of the department’s Office for Civil Rights, sparked outrage when she said that 90% of sexual assault complaints “fall into the category of ‘we were both drunk.'” She later apologized. The following comes from the New York Times.
Trump has a habit of prioritizing illusions above reality. When he pressured Zelensky in Ukraine to hold a press conference announcing an investigation into Joe Biden, he didn’t care about actually having an investigation. He wanted the announcement as the hook to start a narrative he could ride on the trail. It’s questionable whether Trump knew anything substantive about school academic standards at all. Should this man be re-elected and have a second bite at the apple?
*****
In America we have the right to vote for whomever we choose. That right has held up pretty well the past few centuries. As near as I can tell, Trump could be the worst equipped candidate to serve as the symbolic steward of public schooling we’ve ever faced.
Ronald Reagan advocated for reduced federal involvement in education and campaigned on a promise to eliminate the Department of Education. The department remained, but his administration did cut the education budget significantly. George W. Bush (2001-2009) gave us the "No Child Left Behind" Act, with a stifling and counterproductive emphasis on standardized testing that brought about stagnation in schools. Perhaps the biggest fault in NCLB was its choice of the stick over the carrot, punishing schools that didn’t improve based on multiple choice tests rather than supporting them.
Trump tried to use federal funding to coerce state school systems to support the White side of the culture wars by defunding schools that embrace Critical Race Theory, by implication joining Nikki Haley in seeing the Civil War as a battle over states rights, not a struggle to defang the slave power. Like DeSantis, he favors a school system that teaches the benefits of slavery for the enslaved. With his “grab ‘em by the p***y” attitude and his insistence that women deep down want to be assaulted, it’s no surprise that DeVos’ wanted to get young males who sexually assault young females or anyone else off the hook. Boys will be boys, said Mr. Kavanaugh.
In America we have the right to vote for anyone we choose for President so long as the person qualifies—is 35, has lived in the country for 14 years, was born here, was not an insurrectionist, etc. Anyone with even a small interest in sustaining public education during this period of trouble ought to think long and hard about Trump, even if you are a sucker for his, what. charisma. Casting a vote for Trump in 2024 could be the death knell of public schooling in this treacherous period. No hyperbole…
