Following Donald Trump’s re-election on November 5, one of his most controversial education policies, which has been surrounded with heated discussion, could come into fruition — and it is dismantling the federal Department of Education (DOE).
During Trump’s presidential campaign, he put forth many policies revolving around education in the United States. One of the biggest goals that he stated he had was deactivating the Department of Education. If this were to happen, education at Griffith may face some changes.
According to Fox News, Trump said, “one thing I’ll be doing very early in the administration is closing up the Department of Education in Washington, D.C., and sending all education and education work it needs back to the states.” This would mean that, here, the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) would have the main authority on the Indiana curriculum, including governor-elect Mike Braun and whoever is the elected Indiana Secretary of Education following 2025.
On Tuesday evening, November 19, Trump nominated Linda McMahon as the next successor to the U.S. Secretary of Education. McMahon is more famously known for her role in WWE, co-founding the organization with husband Vince McMahon. However, according to the Associated Press, she has always held an interest in teaching. She served for less than a year on the Connecticut Board of Education back in 2009 and a few years on the board of trustees for Sacred Heart University, but never actually spent time teaching, which calls some to question her readiness to lead the Department of Education.
What responsibilities could McMahon have, overseeing a department that is expected to shut down? McMahon has expressed support for charter schools and school choice in the past. She will likely be put up to dismantling her department — “Linda will spearhead that effort,” Trump said, according to CNN — but what happens after that remains unknown. According to the CT Insider, when McMahon addressed problems she saw in education back in 2009, she said, “the curriculum ought to be the same across the board for those who are able to have it.” This could lead to conflicting interests for her, if she still believes in what she said in the past.
It’s worth keeping in mind that the Senate has the final say in the matter. They could reject Trump’s nomination, just as well as approve it. Right now, the Senate is distributed relatively equally, with 51 Democrats and 49 Republicans.
If the Department of Education is in fact dismantled, education across the United States would likely lose any remaining uniformity. Federal education policies would no longer be enforced by a federal entity, and instead, most responsibilities would move to individual state governments. Then, with the varying political ideologies across the United States, state curriculums would have slight variations.
However, “that kind of transition is going to be huge. It’s not going to be something that happens overnight,” Griffith Superintendent of Schools Leah Dumezich said. “That kind of change will likely take years to approve and put into place properly.”
Currently, Indiana is a Republican-dominated state, and Lake County is Democrat-dominated. While the IDOE would still have the main authority on the limits of the curriculum, local governments and school boards will still have discretion over how the curriculum is taught, as they provide most of the funding for programs.
This promise to dismantle the education department is not the first to surface. The long-standing argument from the GOP is this: With the Department of Education overseeing education, state and local governments hold less stake in education. From the beginning of its establishment in 1979 by Jimmy Carter, it has faced Republican opposition. One case of this was when Ronald Reagan took office in 1981 with plans to eliminate the DOE; however, he failed to do so, due to a lack of congressional support.
According to the Indiana Capital Chronicle, “it’s an effort that experts say is unlikely to gain traction in Congress and, if enacted, would create roadblocks for how Trump seeks to implement the rest of his wide-ranging education agenda.” Part of Trump’s policies detail rewarding schools that implement some favorable aspects in the curriculum and prohibiting some topics from being taught; however, a conflict arises when the department which usually handles that is threatened of being dismantled.
Most of the federal funding from the department is allocated towards K-12 high-poverty schools and students with special needs. The department also handles enforcing civil rights protections, as well as distributing financial aid for higher education. On average, public schools across the U.S. receive about 8% of their funding from federal sources (e.g. the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Agriculture); most funding comes from state and local sources.
However, the DOE makes up for this by allocating its funds to areas that hold the most importance. It establishes federal financial aid (mainly for special and higher education), analyzes data and research on schools, identifies major issues for reform, prohibits discrimination in any federally funded program, and ensures that every person has access to equal education.
On the local level for Griffith, this could mean less funding for some programs across the district. Loss of the Department of Education could mean loss of federally funded education grants, such as those for high ability and special education. Instead, increased funding would have to come from the state and local government—and that may mean higher taxes.
According to the DOE website, “the Department’s elementary and secondary programs annually serve nearly 18,200 school districts and over 50 million students attending roughly 98,000 public schools and 32,000 private schools. Department programs also provide grant, loan, and work-study assistance to more than 12 million postsecondary students.” Essentially, the department fills in the gaps which state and local departments miss.
As far as the general curriculum goes, Dumezich is trying to make the best out of all of the possible situations. “Maybe schools could have more control over the standards being taught. That would be a positive in my mind. Having more local control allows us to best serve the kids in our community, instead of following a cookie-cutter approach to the curriculum. I serve as a branch from the Griffith district to Indiana senators, and so I can advocate for what’s needed in my schools.”
So, while the DOE enforces and oversees the curriculum, it’s the Griffith School Board that directly affects what’s going on in the district – and that means that the community members have a stake in the matter as well.
Griffith High School Principal Jon Chance said, “As far as the specific curriculum of our courses, there is a lot of communication with the community and the school board, and then ultimately it is voted on by the board members.” No matter what happens to the DOE, the local community still has substantial power to voice their concerns to the school board in hopes of compromise.
Remember that everything about this is speculative, as of today. “Right now, we’re in the infancy of an idea, and there’s a lot of ideas that go around during political campaigning, so I wouldn’t put too much stake into an idea just yet. Not until we really witness that idea being laid out on paper,” Dumezich said.
