What’s at Stake for Schools as Trump Closes In on Election Victory

Former President Donald Trump, who has pledged to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, slash K-12 spending, and put public schools squarely in the crosshairs of culture warriors, is on the precipice of reclaiming the White House.

Conservative supporters of expanding school choice and parents' rights groups such as Moms for Liberty are likely to cheer his ascendency. Civil rights advocates have warned for months that a second Trump term would decimate federal protections for LGBTQ+ students, students of color, and students from low-income backgrounds.

Big questions loom over just how much Trump, who would be only the second president in U.S. history to be elected to non-consecutive terms, can actually get done on K-12 this time around.

And a major factor in determining his education agenda—and what he accomplishes—is the person he chooses to serve as secretary of education.

Trump's chances of notching significant wins on education—or any policy—will depend in part on which party controls Congress. Republicans were projected early Wednesday morning to reclaim control of the U.S. Senate, according to AP. But it was too soon to know which party would control the U.S. House of Representatives.

In his first term, Trump didn't put much attention or political muscle behind his sweeping conservative wish list of a K-12 agenda, allowing much of it to sputter.

A pitch to combine the departments of education and labor made quick headlines, then vanished into a political blackhole. A Republican-controlled Congress rejected Trump's proposals to slash the Education Department's budget by as much as 13 percent and eliminate popular programs . A proposed expansion of school choice at the federal level—in the form of a federal tax credit scholarship program— never gained legislative momentum .

Still, Trump, and his education secretary, Betsy DeVos, successfully rolled back major initiatives from Barack Obama's presidency aimed at helping certain groups of students including transgender kids and students of color.

Early in 2017, DeVos rescinded Obama's Title IX guidance on the rights of transgender students , which required schools to allow students to use restrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.

And the Trump administration tossed Obama guidance aimed at ensuring schools don't unfairly discipline students of color , who face suspensions and other consequences at rates higher than their peers.

Trump's fans and critics alike expect that one of his first targets this time around will be President Joe Biden's Title IX regulation, which expands the scope of the law's prohibition on sex discrimination so it also applies to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity . The new regulation is already on hold in 26 states and individual schools elsewhere as the result of litigation from Republican-led states .

Since leaving office in 2020, Trump has aligned himself with parent activists focused on fighting what they describe as "woke indoctrination" in public schools. He's pitched K-12 policies that even some of his staunchest supporters find unworkable, such as allowing parents to directly elect their schools' principals .

He's pledged to cut federal funding to schools that teach critical race theory. (There's no evidence that teaching critical race theory, an academic framework generally taught at the university level, is widely prevalent in K-12 schools.)

But beyond that, Trump barely mentioned education on the campaign trail.

In fact, at a campaign stop at Milwaukee's Discovery World Science Museum last month during which he was expected to showcase his support for school choice, Trump instead meandered through a range of other topics for more than half an hour before turning to K-12 policy, according to the Washington Post .

When he did turn to K-12 policy, he hit longtime talking points, criticizing schools for spending too much money while churning out graduates woefully unprepared for the workforce.

"We spend more money on education than any other country in the world, and I said before, much more money per pupil," Trump said at the Milwaukee event. "We're number one on every list. And yet our public schools get worse, and the results get worse. They graduate from public school, they can't read, they can't write." (The United States ranked fifth highest in spending per student among about three dozen developed countries, according to 2019 data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development .)

Trump also stumped for school choice without getting into the policy weeds.

"I believe that school choice is the civil rights issue of our time," Trump said. "A child's fate should be ... determined by their love of education, by their parents, by so many factors, but it can't be determined by a ZIP code. And no parent should be forced to send their child to a failing, government-run school."

And he reiterated his call to abolish the education department—or at least significantly limit its authority—even though that's proved virtually impossible to pull off politically .

"We will have one person plus a secretary, and all the person has to do is, [ask schools] are you teaching English?," Trump said in Milwaukee. "Are you teaching arithmetic? What are you doing? Reading, writing and arithmetic, and are you not teaching woke? Not teaching woke is a very big factor, but we'll have a very small staff."

It's unlikely that Trump will tap DeVos to serve as his education secretary again. DeVos resigned from Trump's cabinet in a letter dated Jan. 7, 2021 , in which she blamed Trump's rhetoric in part for inciting the violent insurrection on the U.S. Capitol the previous day.