Significant changes loom over the US education system
The American education system is poised to become a battleground for significant changes under President-elect Donald Trump and his allies. He’s made a campaign promise to cut the Department of Education (DOE) —which may or may not be politically viable—but experts also believe that the power of the federal purse and the accreditation system may be used to push higher education institutions to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, while the DOE’s Office of Civil Rights may be used to preserve the rights of white students. Colleges and universities might also suffer a possible exodus of students due to restrictive new immigration policies, causing further financial challenges.
At an Ethnic Media Services briefing on December 13, three distinguished panelists discussed potential changes in U.S. education under a Trump presidency. They reviewed the impact on national policy regarding basic, secondary, and higher education, including the possibility of targeting federal funding for schools if they use inclusive instructional materials and pushing for “choice” or vouchers to benefit private institutions.
The experts highlighted the critical role of Title I and Pell Grants in supporting low-income students and the potential resistance from both Republicans and the public to voucher initiatives. Their discussion emphasized the importance of federal leadership in education and the need for vigilance against rhetoric that could lead to policy changes.
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Cutting the Department of Education
Signals emerging from the Trump campaign seem to indicate that “Education is not the highest priority for the incoming president,” said Thomas Toch. Director, FutureEd, Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, referring to the unpredictability of Trump’s education policies. The K-12 landscape educates the largest percentage of students – some 90% attend public schools. It’s hard to fathom the “focus on everything but the quality of the nation’s schools and improving opportunities and outcomes for the nation’s students, in particular those who have traditionally fared least well in the nation’s schools,” said Toch.
Pero Noguera, Dean of USC Rossier School of Education echoed this sentiment, criticizing the Trump administration’s potential cuts to federal funding for community schools and preschool programs. Noguera highlighted the critical role of the Department of Education in delivering supplemental resources like Title One grants to schools serving impoverished children across the country who come from both Republican and Democratic households. He mentioned the success of local districts like Compton in California and the need for federal support to sustain such improvements. Title One, created as a part of civil rights legislation in the 1960s, and the Pell Grant, which supports low-income students in going to college “are highly popular, essential programs,” he said, but warned, “I’m not sure if Congress will just go along with this, unless they have a clear plan on how to do this.”
Noguera emphasized potential pushback from Republicans saying, “We can expect lots of resistance and conflict if they try to proceed with plans to dismantle the Department of Education, and it will come from unlikely quarters,” such as Republicans in Congress, the Senate, and in rural areas.
Toch found it ironic that the Trump administration was trying to tax endowments, given that this would essentially mean going after a relatively small number of higher education, elite institutions with large endowments; he also wondered if the Biden loan forgiveness initiatives would end.
Pushing for private school vouchers
Noguera pointed out the public’s consistent rejection of voucher initiatives in various states, including Kentucky, Nebraska, and Colorado because they favor wealthier residents in a district. “The public has shown repeatedly a distaste for voucher initiatives, which (as in Arizona), often result in subsidizing affluent families at the expense of poor families and taking money out of the public school system.” Given a chance to vote on these measures, the public has consistently voted them down, said Noguera, adding that if the administration tried to push choice and vouchers, “they’re going to experience much more resistance than I think they have expected in the last election.”
Targeting immigrants, DEI & DACA
The panelists raised concerns about immigration policies’ impact on higher education enrollment and the potential undermining of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
On the Trump laundry list said Toch, was ending affirmative action, which would become a focus of the Civil Rights Office, the department that’s likely to oppose DEI equity initiatives promoted by Democrats. He added that international students and dreamers also were at risk and “should be somewhat nervous given the administration’s likely early work to limit access or immigration into the US both legal and illegal.”
However, Thomas Saenz, President and General Counsel, MALDEF, Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund pointed out that remarks about immigration by Trump and his advisors were overstated on purpose, “as a part of a scare campaign that is designed to drive what they call self-deportation.” He offered assurances that despite Trump’s rhetoric, the 1982 US Supreme Court decision (Plyler versus Doe), which guarantees every child the right to attend free public school K-12 regardless of immigration status, “is not in any imminent danger at all.”
It would be challenging to eliminate DACA said Saenz, since the Biden administration had gone through a formal regulatory rule-making process to keep it in place. “No announcement from the Attorney General, no announcement from Trump himself, would immediately end DACA,” he clarified.
Noguera expressed concern about the administration’s ideological focus aimed at launching and sustaining culture wars and attacks on transgender students’ rights, but pointed out they would “need the Office of Civil Rights to carry out those attacks, so that’s in the Department of Education right now.”
He stressed the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion in universities to reflect the country’s growing diversity, warning that how elite universities and institutions respond to growing diversity is essential. “Diversity is our future … if you maintain so much inequity as we have right now, you create resentment and conflict.” Universities need to be criticized and “pushed to be more inclusive and to be more representative of the range of beliefs and opinions in the country.” He warned that book bans and other kinds of censorship would take the country down the path followed by authoritarian regimes.
“I don’t think Americans are ready for that yet.”
Challenges and Opportunities in Higher Education
Undoubtedly, reform in higher education was needed due to its high cost and declining enrollment said Noguera. He pointed out that the country faced huge educational challenges. “We have huge gaps in achievement that were exacerbated by the pandemic, particularly in math, and we also have major challenges that are related to teaching kids to read.” Nearly 54% of adults aged 16 to 74 in this country read below the sixth-grade level, according to the US Department of Education Data, added Toch. “I fear … that we may not be getting the leadership that we really need on the school improvement front.”
Many Americans don’t understand science, the threat of climate change, and a basic fundamental knowledge of how the Constitution and government work, Noguera continued. “Our educational system, K 12 has great needs, … and it’s unfortunate if all the attention goes into the politics and not into the substance of education.”
How to take action
Going forward said the experts, it was important to monitor the administration’s actions on issues like DACA and Plyler v. Doe to protect the rights of immigrant students and prepare for potential rhetoric and attempts to undermine diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in education.
Noguera urged follow-up on the administration’s plans to cut the Department of Education and federal education funding, warning that grants go to community schools which have been created “to address the fact that a lot of kids are hungry, kids that don’t have health services, kids have basic needs that schools often must step up. They (the administration will) get pushback on that.”
Saenz pointed out that many of the basic civil rights that we all count on in education are protected by congressional legislation and it would require congressional action to eliminate or limit them. “This is a Congress that, despite Republican formal control, is quite evenly split in the House of Representatives, where it will be difficult for them to enact anything that they cannot achieve unanimous Republican support for.”
Room for Improvement
While there was room for greater efficiency and making sure that federal monies were spent appropriately, Noguera said the Trump administration was coming in as though they had a political mandate, adding, “I don’t think they’re coming in with a clear understanding of how the system works.”
The key question said Noguera, is whether the administration will play a role in supporting the changes that are needed or merely disrupt and create chaos. He warned that unpopular decisions by the incoming administration would find resistance and pushback from many quarters and fail.
“When politicians come in believing they have more of a mandate than they actually do, they often make huge mistakes, and I have a feeling that this will happen with the Trump administration as well, particularly in education.”
The incoming administration will have to follow constitutional mandates like due process for many of the changes that they suggest said Saenz, and will have to secure congressional action to implement them from a fairly evenly split Congress.
“Regardless of his desires to be a dictator, in fact, under our system, the President and his cabinet members do not have dictatorial power.”