Originally published at The Stream on February 20, 2025.
Recently, President Donald Trump confirmed that he is preparing an executive order to begin dismantling the U.S. Department of Education. Almost immediately outrage spread 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.”
A national education outlet 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.
Since its creation in 1979, the Department of Education has spent more than $1 trillion trying to accomplish its stated mission. Yet, if an institution designed to improve outcomes has instead overseen their collapse, is it not reasonable to give it an overhaul?
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.
A National Reset
Of course, an executive order alone cannot eliminate the Department of Education — that requires an act of Congress. Nor would its elimination erase all the federal education laws that still have to be enforced. But through executive action, the administration can begin reordering the department’s priorities, reducing its footprint, and transferring some of its responsibilities elsewhere.
Trump has made it clear that he wants to see fundamental 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.
- 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.
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.