Multiple reports warned that President Donald Trump is preparing an executive order to impose severe cutbacks on the U.S. Department of Education and eventually shut the agency down.
Note: This story will be updated as more news surfaces regarding Trump’s plans for education.
Latest update: 2/4/25
The Wall Street Journal reports that the Department of Education is the next target of Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) program to shrink the federal government. Trump is apparently preparing an executive order that would eliminate “all functions of the agency that aren’t written explicitly into statute,” the report said.
Trump may also ask Congress to “abolish” the department, the Wall Street Journal contends. In characterizing the situation, ABC News said Trump was “finalizing plans” to shutter the agency.
Latest update: 2/3/25
Educational institutions will now revert to the Title IX regulations first issued during President Donald Trump’s first presidency, the U.S. Department of Education wrote in a “Dear Colleague” letter on Friday.
The department is now enforcing protections based on biological sex in K12 schools and higher education institutions. Trump’s 2020 ruling also ensures that free speech is protected on campus and allows for stronger due process protections for students during Title IX sexual misconduct proceedings.
Latest update: 1/31/25
President Donald Trump moved this week to expand school choice and end what he calls “indoctrination” in K12 schools. In a pair of executive orders, he launched an effort to potentially reshape K12 education and other sectors of American society.
One order directed the secretaries of education and labor to make “education freedom” a priority. He gave those agencies 90 days to develop a plan to use discretionary funding to expand school choice.
“More than a dozen states have enacted universal K-12 scholarship programs, allowing families—rather than the government—to choose the best educational setting for their children,” the order reads. “These states have highlighted the most promising avenue for education reform: educational choice for families and competition for residentially assigned, government-run public schools.”
The second order targets “subversive” and “anti-American” thinking and aims to eliminate federal funding for “illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology.”
The order defines “discriminatory equity ideology” as instruction that would, among other things, label members of any race or gender as inherently racist or oppressive. It also contends that discussing ideas such as white privilege and unconscious bias could promote discrimination and undermine “national unity.”
Latest update: 1/30/25
Nearly a dozen investigations into how book bans impact students have been dropped by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
Amidst a record-breaking surge in bans—many race- and gender-based—the Biden administration had been assessing whether removing books created a hostile environment for students.
Calling reports of the bans a “hoax,” the Trump administration’s Office of Civil Rights has “rescinded all department guidance issued under the theory that a school district’s removal of age-inappropriate books from its libraries may violate civil rights laws.”
Civil rights officials have decided that books are not actually being banned. Rather, school districts, parents and community members are simply opting to remove age-inappropriate materials.
“By dismissing these complaints and eliminating the position and authorities of a so-called ‘book ban coordinator,’ the department is beginning the process of restoring the fundamental rights of parents to direct their children’s education,” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor in a statement.
“The department adheres to the deeply rooted American principle that local control over public education best allows parents and teachers alike to assess the educational needs of their children and communities,” Trainor added.
The anti-censorship organization PEN America responded, saying that calling the complaints a “hoax” dismisses the experiences of students, educators, librarians and authors who are encountering censorship in schools.
“We will continue to raise awareness and resistance to ongoing book bans in defense of students’ freedom to read,” Kasey Meehan, director of PEN America’s Freedom to Read program, said in a statement. “All students deserve to see themselves and the world around them reflected in the books shelved within their public schools.“
Latest update: 1/24/25
How has Trump’s first week in office impacted K12?
We’re officially one week into President Donald Trump’s second presidency and already there are a lot of changes to navigate, many of which will directly impact K12 education.
Trump didn’t have much to say about education during his inauguration, except that America has “an education system that teaches our children to be ashamed of themselves, in many cases to hate our country despite the love that we try so desperately to provide them.”
“All of this will change starting today and will change very quickly,” he added.
One of the more significant changes involves the elimination of DEI initiatives in the Department of Education and instead “reorienting the agency toward prioritizing meaningful learning ahead of diverse ideology in our school,” the Department’s announcement reads.
These efforts are expected to continue as the department aims to end discrimination based on race and the use of harmful race stereotypes, both within the agency and throughout the country’s education system, the announcement continues.
Here are some changes the department has already taken since Trump’s first day in office:
- The dissolution of the department’s Diversity and Inclusion Council
- The dissolution of the Employee Engagement Diversity Equity Inclusion Accessibility Council (EEDIAC) within the Office for Civil Rights (OCR)
- Cancellation of ongoing DEI training and service contracts which total more than $2.6 million
- Withdrawal of the Department’s Equity Action Plan
- Placement of career Department staff tasked with implementing the previous administration’s DEI initiatives on paid administrative leave
- Identification for removal of more than 200 web pages from the Department’s website that housed DEI resources and encouraged schools and institutions of higher education to promote or endorse harmful ideological programs
Last Monday, he signed several executive orders to reverse efforts by the Biden administration to provide protections for LGBTQ+ students and expand access to education for Hispanic, Native American and Black students.
One executive order calls on the U.S. government to recognize male and female as the two primary sexes based on reproductive cells, unlike Biden’s policies which offered protections based on gender identity. The new order asks federal agencies to use its definition of sex to enforce laws, like Title IX.
“The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system,” the order reads. “Basing Federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself.”
On Tuesday, he also directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agents to begin patrolling “sensitive” areas, like K12 schools and colleges, for enforcement actions. In other words, schools are no longer off-limits for immigration enforcement operations.
“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” reads a statement from a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson. “The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense.”
As immigration enforcement intensifies, we encourage you to read this newly released guide from the Center for Democracy and Technology for education leaders on complying with existing student privacy and civil rights laws.
“Schools need to be prepared to address potential enforcement on campus,” the CDT wrote. This document provides background on how immigration enforcement may impact K12 schools and offers recommendations for how schools can meet long-standing legal obligations that remain unchanged regardless of increased enforcement activity.
School choice has big support from Trump. Can it be improved?
School choice programs are expected to gain more attention from President-elect Donald Trump and his allies in the Republican-controlled Congress. Though these programs are likely to expand, access to educational opportunities remains uneven for many families.
There is far less “choice” in marginalized communities, according to a new report from the Center for Reinventing Public Education. The research suggests that low-income families, families of color and those with children who have disabilities have fewer “desirable” options in school choice programs compared to affluent families, white families and those whose children don’t have a disability.
There are several solutions policymakers should lean into under the new administration, including offering incentives to high-quality education providers that commit to addressing the needs of underserved students. Policymakers can do this by weighting per-pupil allotments to counteract incentives for private school operators to avoid students perceived as more difficult or expensive to educate.
Read the full report here to learn how school choice might improve under the Trump presidency.
On a similar note, researchers at the Brown Center on Education Policy write that a large federal tax credit to support private and homeschooling is much more likely during Trump’s second term. Douglas N. Harris, nonresident senior fellow in governance studies at Brown Center, says it would be a landmark decision.
“This movement toward super-vouchers, which can be used for both private school tuition and other education expenses, is the biggest shift in K12 education policy since Brown v. Board of Education,” Harris writes.
“Weaponizing” the Office for Civil Rights
Brown Center’s Rachel M. Perera, a fellow in governance studies, says she’ll be paying close attention to the Trump administration’s plan for federal civil rights enforcement in K12 schools, colleges and universities.
“Trump has promised to reverse Biden-era Title IX protections for LGBTQ+ students, which prohibit discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation,” Perera writes.
These legal protections impact K12 policies such as pronoun use and students’ access to bathrooms and locker rooms. They also make harassment and bullying of LGBTQ+ youth based on gender or sexual identity a civil rights violation, she adds.
Trump has also proposed keeping transgender student-athletes from playing sports and cutting federal funding for schools that teach what he calls “woke ideology,” “gender insanity” and “critical race theory,” writes Perera. The administration’s success depends on several key political appointments in the Office for Civil Rights, the language of new regulations and the outcome of legal challenges, she adds.
Trump’s K12 education plan
In our past conversations with experts, many have told us that Trump is not overly focused on K12 education. Arman Jaffer, a policy aide to the chief technology officer during the Trump Administration, argues the Trump administration will not spend much political capital making structural changes to the national education system.
“I expect the new administration to explore how technology and alternative school models can be used to achieve improved student performance,” says Jaffer, CEO and founder of Brisk Teaching, an AI teaching platform. “In a nod to some of the persistent cultural clashes happening at school boards across the country, we can also expect the new Republican administration to advocate for more local control and parent involvement in curriculum.”
One policy in particular continues to make media headlines, and that’s Trump’s proposal to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, which would transfer more power to the states, parents and local governments, according to the Project 2025 website.
Several presidents in the past have tried to limit the department’s power, including our 40th president, Ronald Reagan, who also argued that education should be managed at the state and local levels.
Basil Smikle, professor and director of the M.S. in Nonprofit Management Program at Columbia University School of Professional Studies, says that dismantling the department altogether is arguably the most impactful policy Trump has outlined for K12.
“Conservative and Democratic lawmakers alike are in districts that get substantial funding, particularly in red states and rural communities where many schools benefit from Title I funds,” Smikle says.
Obviously, no Republican president has successfully closed the department because of the difficulty of eliminating all the programs that the DOE supports. The more likely scenario, Smikle explains, is a scaling down of equity and civil rights offices that will impact everything from school discipline to graduation rates and curriculum.
Additionally, Trump may use the agency to push for more school choice options in the form of education tax credits, charter schools and voucher programs.
“Since many of these programs and indeed much education policy is determined at the state level, he’ll need to rely on a carrot and stick approach—support states when they comply with federal programs, i.e., Race to the Top, or withhold funding for states that reject his proposals,” Smikle says.
As far as curriculum goes, Smikle says leaders should expect more local battles over content. Constituencies supportive of Trump’s platform may also assert more power over school- and district-level decisions “now that they have an ally in the White House.”
About Linda McMahon
McMahon has an extensive resume ranging from experience in business and politics. Her relationship with Trump dates back to the mid-2000s when he appeared at Wrestlemania in 2007.
Her political journey began in 2010 after she stepped down from her leadership role in the WWE to run for a U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut. She lost both times she ran, to Richard Blumenthal in her first campaign and to Chris Murphy in 2012.
She also has been a prominent supporter of Trump’s presidential campaigns. McMahon gave six million dollars to Trump after he earned the presidential nomination in 2016, the Associated Press reported.
One month into his previous presidency, Trump appointed McMahon to lead the Small Business Administration, where she provided entrepreneurs with capital to support their businesses and federal contracting opportunities. The agency also distributed financial assistance following declared disasters.
However, her nomination has already met with some controversy. According to The Hill, McMahon has been accused of negligence regarding a sexual abuse case while she was with the WWE.
The lawsuit, which was filed in October, accuses her and her husband, Vince McMahon, of knowing about a ringside announcer who allegedly abused young boys for years but refused to do anything about it. The plaintiffs, who remain unnamed, said announcer Mel Phillips, who died in 2012, sexually assaulted them when they served as “ring boys” in the 1980s. They were responsible for running errands and setting up venues for fights.
“Thanks to the bravery of our clients, we finally have a chance to hold accountable those who allowed and enabled the open, rampant sexual abuse of these young boys,” Gren Gutzler, a partner at DiCello Levitt, who is leading the litigation, said in a public statement.
McMahon has since denied the allegations and plans to fight against the suit.
More from DA: Education policy: How it will shift under new administration
