Originally published at The Stream on February 20, 2025. Updated March 20, 2025
On March 20th, President Donald Trump finally signed an executive order to begin dismantling the U.S. Department of Education. Since assuming office he has been talking about this day. The more he spoke about it, the more outrage began spreading through the education establishment and mainstream media. The National Association of Educators (NAE) swiftly condemned the move, saying it would be “catastrophic” and accusing Trump of using “divisive, culture-war rhetoric when he highlighted the indoctrination happening in K-12 schools.”
The Chronicle of Higher Education ran a prominent piece lamenting that “higher education is trapped in Trump’s chaos,” accusing him of imposing “a far-right agenda” on the nation. The writer even went so far as to advise university presidents to preserve their DEI programs by simply renaming them.
This is Trump’s “chaos”? Really? Let’s talk about real chaos for a moment. The state of American education is not good. We are in what some refer to as “an education depression.”
The most recent math and science scores from the Program for International Student Assessment reveal that we are far from the top of the international heap, and significantly behind China (and Canada!). All the while, students from high school all the way down to preschool are getting a steady dose of gender, racial, and sexual ideologies alongside and within their lessons on reading, writing, and arithmetic!
Campus Chaos
Public confidence in American universities continues to plummet, as reflected in Gallup’s annual surveys. Many families are questioning the value proposition of a college education. The issue is not just high cost; they see the extreme politicization, the coddling of students, the suppression of free speech, the rise of cancel culture, the erosion of academic rigor, and a growing disdain for merit.
The institutions that once championed intellectual growth and academic excellence are now too often engaged in ideological activism at the expense of real education. The Department of Education and the college accrediting agencies, not to mention our national teachers unions, all push in this direction.
Has the Department of Education Fulfilled Its Mission?
The mission of the U.S. Department of Education is “to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.” Has it succeeded? Has it closed the achievement gap? Have student outcomes improved under its watch, especially with all the money we have spent since its creation? If the answer is no — and the data suggest that it is — then we need strong reform.
Trump’s proposal to dismantle the department is not merely about bureaucratic downsizing (although he is right to want to eliminate wasteful bureaucracies, and federal spending is way out of control). The goal is not simply decentralizing and sending these responsibilities back to the states, although that would be quite constitutional. His proposal is about fixing a broken system.
When President Carter created the DOE he promised that it would eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy, cut red tape, and provide better services for schools as well as save tax dollars. But that’s exactly what did not happen. Since its creation in 1979, the Department of Education has spent more than $3 trillion trying to accomplish its stated mission. We have spent more money than any other nation per pupil, and yet our national rankings have only dropped. If an institution designed to improve outcomes has instead overseen their collapse, is it not reasonable to give it an overhaul?
A National Reset
Of course, an executive order alone cannot eliminate the Department of Education — that requires an act of Congress (and that, the President said is now in the works). Nor would the elimination of the DOE erase all the federal education laws that still have to be enforced. Today the President promised that Pell Grants, Title I funding, and resources for children with disabilities and special needs will be preserved (but shifted to other departments and agencies). But through executive action, the administration has begun reordering the department’s priorities, reducing its footprint, and transferring some of its responsibilities elsewhere.
In all this, President Trump has made it clear that he wants to see fundamental education reforms.
- In K-12, he wants to restore excellence and see us go back to teaching the basics — reading, writing, and math, as well as a knowledge of and love for our country. At the same time, he wants to empower parents and expand school choice. His administration has already taken steps to eliminate federal funding for schools that promote racist DEI agendas, radical gender ideology, and discriminatory “equity” programs. It is hoped that he will adopt a statement like the Heritage Foundation’s new Phoenix Declaration, to give a new, bold vision to America’s public schools.
- In higher education, he wants to restore merit and high academic standards, to have colorblind equality of opportunity (not outcomes), to protect free speech, to end DEI with all its ideological baggage, to curb violent and intimidating forms of campus activism, to overhaul accreditation so it is not burdensome or weaponized, to teach and promote the American tradition and Western civilization, and to eliminate wasteful administrative spending that drives up costs. These are some of the university-level reforms he has talked about.
We need a major course correct in American education. It’s time for real change, not just the preservation of a failing status quo. I am grateful that President Trump recognizes the crisis and is willing to take bold action. The process has now begun.
It should not surprise us that many with a vested interest in the current system are outraged by this. But it’s their chaos, not Trump’s, that has brought us to this point.