President Trump recently signed a confidential executive order that could potentially lead to a significant restructuring of the government. This order is related to education and aims to enhance school choice by instructing the Department of Education to provide guidance to states on utilizing federal funds to support school choice programs within their jurisdictions within a 60-day timeframe.
School choice has always been a key element of the Republican Party’s agenda, and many Republican-led states have allocated additional resources in recent years to enable low-income families to enroll their children in private or charter schools. The idea of either streamlining or completely dismantling the federal Department of Education has gained traction as a prominent policy proposal among Republicans. During the Republican presidential primary, tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy advocated for the elimination of the Department of Education while campaigning in Pennsylvania in 2023. Additionally, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley pledged to “clean out the Department of Education” if elected, as stated during a campaign event in New Hampshire in 2023.
In a campaign email sent in July 2024, President Trump outlined his educational priorities for the nation, which include discontinuing federal funding for institutions or initiatives promoting “critical race theory,” launching civil rights investigations into schools accused of discriminating against Asian Americans, implementing a new certification system for teachers who uphold patriotic values, and identifying and removing individuals with extremist ideologies who may have infiltrated the Department of Education.
