On Tuesday, NBC News reported, “White House preparing executive order to abolish the Department of Education.” The article starts:
The White House is preparing an executive order to eliminate the Department of Education, two sources familiar with the plans told NBC News.
President Donald Trump cannot unilaterally abolish a federal agency without the approval of Congress.
The planned order follows years of campaign promises from Trump to abolish the federal Education Department.
No doubt MAGAs will be ecstatic. Conservatives hate public education. They see it as a socialist ploy to indoctrinate American students with un-American ideals — which everyone else would call ‘teaching the truth’. They view schools as liberal propaganda farms whose missions are to:
- make white kids feel bad about themselves
- make straight kids gay
- to arbitrarily select a few teens for involuntary gender reassignment behind their parents' backs.
Their primary wedges are to:
- decry the abysmal state of education in the US. Their rallying call is ‘It sucks. Therefore we must get rid of it.’
- claim that education should be left up to the states.
In a Sept 2023 video post, Trump made this clear when he said,
“One other thing I’ll be doing very early in the administration is closing up the Department of Education in Washington D.C., and sending all education and education work and needs back to the states.”
“In total American society pours more than $1 trillion a year into public education systems but instead of being at the top of the list, we are literally right smack — guess what — at the bottom.”
As always, he overstates the case. America is not “at the bottom.” However, it is stuck in the middle. No one can claim that America’s youth are getting the education their parents' tax dollars should be paying for. However, you do not fix something by throwing it out. That would be as stupid as saying, “Cancer surgery does not cure every cancer. So let’s try faith healing.”
As for Trump’s position that education should be left entirely up to the various states, there may be merit in it. However, the conservative goal is to save money, no matter what. So the states should not hold their breath waiting for federal funds to be turned over to state education departments.
On the other hand, knowing the conservative mind, should any federal money flow to the states, it will be distributed based on lack of high school achievement. Thus, it will go to educationally underachieving states — i.e. the Red States. The funds will also come from states that contribute most to the federal wallet — i.e. the Blue States.
Beyond this diversion of money from liberals to conservatives lies the threat to higher education for poor and middle-class students. America, uniquely among rich countries, places an enormous higher education burden on its young adults. The average cost to attend an in-state public university in the US is $27,146. A non-profit private university will set the student back $56,628.
The only way a middle-class student can attend college is to hope to hell they qualify for enough financial aid to avoid spending the rest of their lives paying off their student debt.
Pell grants are the Education Department’s largest expenditure. A third of US university students rely on one — with the average student receiving $4,491. Under Trump, will that money still be available? Not if it’s left up to the acting President, Elon F.U. Musk. A man who is determined to subject America’s less well-off to the apartheid policies of his South African youth.
Musk loves to complain about unqualified Americans. Yet, if he, Trump, and the MAGA mouth breathers get their way, the number of the unqualified will soar. (Note: it isn't about qualifications. Musk’s goal is simply to have American tech run on indentured foreign technical servants working at a discount.
One never-stated reason conservatives love the idea of razing the Dept of Ed is that dumbasses are more likely to vote Republican. The MAGA base is so dedicated to being ground down by the cynics they vote for, that the motto of the movement ought to be “Thank you, sir. May I have another.”
Ironically there is one fly in Trump’s ointment. Shit-canning the Dept of Ed requires congressional sign-off. Democrats need to make the potential dent in educational funding personal to the MAGA parents cheerleading their own financial jeopardy.
Will the charismatic and compelling spokespeople for the left please stand up, identify yourself, start talking, and don’t effing stop. If you are a Democratic pol who thinks Chuck “I’m aroused” Schumer is one of them, then sit down.