Statement from Education Law Center Executive Director Robert Kim on Trump Executive Order to Dismantle the U.S. Department of Education
The Trump administration’s attempt to dismantle and eventually eliminate the U.S. Department of Education is profoundly wrongheaded, threatening to compromise our nation’s ability to ensure high-quality and non-discriminatory education for millions of American students.
The executive order reveals utter disregard for the Department’s core functions, which are to support states’ and school districts’ efforts to provide educational access and opportunity, equity, and excellence for students and families across the nation and to ensure that states and districts comply with key federal laws including those that protect civil rights.
The existence and future of the Department is controlled by Congress, not the White House. Ceasing or curtailing core Department functions runs counter to the funding and civil rights statutes – such as Title I for low-income students and IDEA for students with disabilities – that Congress has charged the Department with implementing and enforcing.
Even in a decentralized system like ours, where states and districts are the core providers of public preK-12 education, and postsecondary schools largely operate autonomously, there is a need to support state and local governments and schools that have different challenges and abilities to provide a high-quality education depending on their economies and the characteristics of their student populations. Eliminating the vital support system provided by the Department – which includes fiscal resources, technical assistance, and civil rights enforcement – would harm schools and students and exacerbate inequities between and within states.
States already direct and control their public schools. Yet, under the guise of “returning authority” to the states, the Trump Administration is actually planning to cut aid, support, and civil rights protections, which will harm states, districts, postsecondary institutions, and students, families and communities nationwide.
The only thing the Trump administration would be “returning” us to is a time throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries when the federal government didn’t provide coordinated aid or support, when many students were left out of public education altogether, when higher education was out of reach for all but a few, and when states and districts – no matter how cash-strapped, no matter how uneven their commitment to embracing integration and equal access for all students – were left to their own devices.
The move to eliminate the Department is astonishingly retrograde, taking us back generations, instead of positioning us for success as a nation in the 21st century, when a vibrant education system matters more than ever for our economy, our national security, our democracy, and to foster the well-being and bright futures of millions of children.
Americans do not want to see the nation’s preK-12 and higher education systems thrown into chaos. Education Law Center calls on Congress to resist any effort to weaken or eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. And we will pursue every avenue to stop this White House’s plan to gut equal educational opportunity for America’s students.
Press Contact:
Sharon Krengel
Director of Policy, Strategic Partnerships and Communications
skrengel@edlawcenter.org
973-624-1815, x240