During his campaign, Trump pledged to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. Public opinion was overwhelmingly opposed. Trump didn’t care. He claims that the Department is filled with “radical Marxists” and “left wing lunatics” who are intent on indoctrinating children and promoting “gender ideology” that is sure to turn them gay or transgender.
This is absurd. About 99% of the employees of the Department process grants and contracts, oversee programs, and review submissions from the public and requests from Congress. They are not radical or Marxist. They have no influence on what is taught in the schools. None. A friend once quipped that the Department is a check-writing machine. It sends money appropriated by Congress to schools with large numbers of low-income students, it sends money to fund extra care for students with disabilities, it processes applications for college student aid. Its Office for Civil Rights investigates and acts on claims that students’ rights were violated.
I, along with many others, assumed that Trump would never be able to shut down the Department because he couldn’t do it without 60 votes in the Senate. He would never get 60 votes. There are only 53 Republicans in the Senate, and no Democrat would join them. Some Republicans might defect.
So Trump has taken an alternate route. Yesterday he fired about half the Department’s staff. Tomorrow he might fire more, maybe everyone but Secretary McMahon and her personal staff. The Department will be unable to function. It will be an empty shell.
And that’s how Trump gets what he wants. Not by following the law but by subverting it.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We have the absurd spectacle of Congress pretending to exercise the power of the purse when #Felon47 has already snatched it from under their noses.
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A ketamine-addled sociopath plans to destroy the US from Constitution to Congress to Courts, and replace it with a dystopian computer game in which people allowed to live work in walled megacorporation yards. The ignorance of the American people and the tech world about reality has brought us here.
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I’m still trying to understand why Musk and Trump are destroying the federal government. Maybe they need nothing so to them it’s all waste. But I keep thinking they are doing this destruction for Putin.
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Destroy it in order to replace it. Laws, democratic process, regulation of access to life and resources, are obstacles to their goals. Think about the cultures and economies of the Mongol Khans. They were gift/graft economies founded in the fears of those left alive after they passed through.
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The U.S. Department of Education’s mission is to “promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access“.
They signed their death decree with those last three words.
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How I wish the USED mission had been something like, “To promote student learning and achievement in preparation for furthering global cooperation with educational excellence and equity.”
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I also think it was with “global competitiveness” . . . nah. CBK
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When the people elect a felon and vandal, they should not be surprised that he refuses to follow the rule of law. This is not a normal administration. It’s a coup. The only thing that may be able to stop him is if large numbers of people revolt. One way to get their attention is refusing to spend except for food, gas, utilities and medical needs.
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Let us not forget that it was the feds at the Education Department that held state governments hostage with blood money unless they agreed to change their teacher evaluation laws. Teachers are still being evaluated with links to high stakes student testing. The feds are also partially responsible for helping start the “blame the teachers for everything” movement that started in the early 2000’s. Trump can try to shut it down but will loose in court. What will most likely happen is the Education Department will be placed under control of the Labor Department instead. All those grants that everyone is afraid of going away won’t go away without congressional approval, they will just be run by another department. Trimming the fat is not always a bad thing. Our federal government has been wasting taxpayer dollars for years.
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I have to agree with you on this one. Necessary departments were run through HEW prior to DoEd and they will continue to run through different departments. And the Fed are supposed to have NO control over curriculum……yet the DoEd allowed (and still do!) and approved curriculum (Common Core)/programs (testing) that the States were forced to purchase so that they could collect Fed tax $$$. Consultants and vendors make billions from Fed tax $$$$ and very little of the $$$ makes it into schools for students and teachers.
I’ve got to say, I absolutely abhor the DoEd. Both of my children were “schooled” (not taught) under NCLB, RTtT, and ESA. When I finally yanked #2 and put him into private school, my blood pressure dropped into normal range.
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While Obama dragged us into CBE and data collection, the DOE protects civil rights and helps the disadvantaged with Title 1, Pell grants, and college loans. I have no faith that other agencies will take these functions over under Trump, and sending funds to red states is a joke. Who knows where the money will end up.
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Well, I have faith that other agencies can handle it. I hate what the feds did to teacher evaluations.
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I agree that the USDOE hasn’t served us well in the areas mentioned in these two Replies. They were discussed at length, here, while the debacles were in full swing. But giving Trump a free pass because we don’t like the target sets a very bad precedent.
Yes, it’s difficult to dismantle a department once it’s been established in Washington, DC. But NCLB, CCSS, RTtT, etc were all been bipartisan efforts. Rather than let Trump take a blow torch to it, why not put pressure on our reps (blue and red) to make changes, instead?
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We have not had a pro-public school Secretary of Education, with he exception of Richard Riley. Clinton’s pick.
Bill Bennett, Rod Paige, Margaret Spellings, Arne Duncan, John King, Betsy DeVos, now McMahon. All more interested in “school choice” than in improving the schools that 90% attend.
But eliminating the Department is symbolic of the agenda of Trump-Moms for Liberty-crazies.
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If Trump manages to get dismantling DofEd past Congress, the direction that will take is spelled out in Project 2025 Section 3 Chapter 11. Here are where major functions would be moved to:
Title I funding – HHS (no-strings block grants to states – and states should take over its funding over the next decade [!])
IDEA funding – HHS (no-strings block grants to states)
Student Financial Aid – “a new government corporation with professional governance and management”
OCR – DOJ
Career/ Tech/ Adult Ed – Labor
Tribally-related – Bureau of Indian Education
NCES – Labor’s Census Bureau [NAEP not mentioned – but probably here]
IES (ed research): this is mumbled nonsense which sounds like ‘let’s delete it’
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Thanks, Ginny.
The most important point is that Title 1 would go to the states to use for vouchers.
AFTER 10 YEARS, IT WOULD BE ELIMINATED.
Title 1 was created in 1965 to reduce the gap between poor schools and well-funded schools. That attempt at equalization would disappear.
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Seriously, if tRump “terminated” an entire U.S. city with nukes, would 10% of the voters still support him?
I mean, look at the percentage of MAGA-types who are still happy to be onboard his runaway train, weeks into this crapstorm of insanity.
Meanwhile, tomorrow marks the 5th anniversary of when much of the world shut down. One million+ Americans were killed due to COVID-19.
Remember when ‘everything was going to change’??
P.S. When we got back into a classroom in September 2020 I had my 12th graders write about how the pandemic had changed their perspective on life. I’ll have to go find those papers and re-read them.
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Joe McCarthy is spinning in his crypt……………………..with joy, glee and gioia maligna (Italian for schadenfreude).
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“Joe McCarthy’s Crypt” sounds like a punk song title from 1978. Like, “Gary Gilmore’s Eyes”.
Except this sure ain’t 1978.
Though, come to think of it, South Carolina just used a firing squad to carry out a death sentence, like Utah did back in the seventies.
What a country!
We..are…..going…….BACKWARDS. Way backwards…
We’re gonna party like it’s 1899.
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John O., now we know that MAGA means the days of McKinley. Tariffs. Robber Barons. Widespread poverty. No social safety net.
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Joe Jersey, this feels like the Joe McCarthy era with one huge difference. McCarthy was never President. Trump has captured all the reins of power with the help of quisling Republicans.
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Apropos of nothing, the convicted murderer “was executed by firing squad…which he saw as preferable to the electric chair or lethal injection.”
Having said that, we all knew that this election would have far beyond worse than horrific consequences. Ergo, in view of all things happening yes, the Dark Ages are descending.
&..Bezos (one of the 3 Stooges {I shouldn’t insult the real 3 Stooges by saying that})–Prime Video is now streaming (free) all seasons of “The Apprentice,” fawning fool that he is.
(If you want to watch the Oscar-nominated film, The Apprentice (Jeremy Strong nominated for Best Supporting Actor as Roy Cohn), you have to pay.
But I’m expecting that Bezos will remove it from the queue soon. Does The Washington Post still carry the line, “Democracy Dies in Darkness?”
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I highly recommend “The Apprentice”.
You can watch it on Amazon Prime, but Trump is trying to get it taken down, so do it soon. It was enlightening to me, as someone who never watched the show or read anything about his background.
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I enjoyed that movie.
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One of the goals of project 2025 is privatizing government programs. This would, of course, mean that some programs would be buried and gone, should they not be seen as money makers.
He’s breaking the law and pissing on the Constitution. Complete and flagrant abuse of power. Unfortunately, he’s a criminal with a lot of money and backing…so he knows how to get away with it. It’s terrible.
Interesting points made, below. The department has definitely made some bad moves in the area of education policy. Whether it needs to be dismantled because of these decisions or re-evaluated/changed is another matter.
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That was meant to be a Reply to Diane’s question as to why Trump/Musk are pulling these stunts. The comments “below” were referring to Chris and Lisa’s.
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You know, great big silly me, I didn’t know it was all about making money. I hate to admit now, when it’s too late, that I never asked for or expected money for raising my child or helping to raise my three grandchildren or caring for my elderly relatives. What a dunce I am. Live and learn. CBK
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I have to admit that I fell into the same trap, Catherine. And now I fear that it’s probably too late to catch up to the big boy rats in this race.
Oh well…
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gitapik: I should have sold my baby. He was really cute when he was little. I have pictures. They don’t sell well, however. CBK
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Yes…they don’t have the same guarantee of fine aging as a Stradivarius or Amati. Not very flashy either…what with the diapers and all.
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Gitapik: I meant the pictures don’t sell well. Family things are really loser stuff, however. I was going to say cheap shit, but you know what I mean. CBK
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