How the Trump administration is dramatically reshaping education in America

John Yang:

In March, President Trump signed an executive order to begin shutting down the Department of Education, though it would take an act of Congress to actually close it. In the meantime, the department is taking dramatic steps toward fulfilling a conservative vision of a reshaped system of primary and secondary education.

Jennifer Smith Richards is the co-author of a ProPublica investigation looking into all of this. Jennifer, what is the Department of Education doing? What steps are they taking?

Jennifer Smith Richards, ProPublica:

Yeah, so they've been very clear since Trump took office that the idea was to shut down the department. Linda McMahon, the Secretary of Education, has called it her final mission. And Donald Trump, of course, has called the department a big con job. So that part has been clear, this desire to phase out many of the functions of the department and close it down.

What's been less clear is why Linda McMahon has brought in a number of political strategists and, you know, ultra conservative activists into the office, even as it's supposed to be shutting down and winding down. Those people have been quiet, frankly, about what they are doing behind the scenes at the department.

John Yang:

Is there a common thread running between through these appointments? And are they all have similar goals or similar things they've talked about in the past about education?

Jennifer Smith Richards:

They have. My colleague and I at ProPublica went through, you know, hundreds and hundreds of hours of speeches and podcast interviews and read essays that were from these appointees that really lay out a vision for the future of American education.

And the through line really is that they want to break up what they view as a monopoly that public schools have. And they envision in the future that far fewer students will be attending a public school.

John Yang:

I've heard people talk about this, and it's all in the view of the idea of returning power to the parents, letting them sort of figure out what schools are doing well and let them send the money there. What do the critics say about this?

Jennifer Smith Richards:

Well, critics say you need a strong public school system for many reasons. One is that public schools are required to serve students with disabilities, whereas private schools typically are not. You know, the American school system is a democratic idea. It was designed to serve any and all students who come through their doors. And private school choice means that private schools also get to choose which students they're going to accept.

John Yang:

On the one hand, the administration and conservatives say that most decisions about what happens in school should be done at the state and local level. But are they talking about getting involved at the federal level about some curriculum decisions?

Jennifer Smith Richards:

Federal government historically has not been involved in dictating what is being taught in the classrooms. They've not been in the curriculum business. But what we're seeing under this administration is a desire to promote certain types of curriculum, for example, what they refer to as a pro America or patriotic curriculum that would be in public schools across America.

We've also seen a number of edicts and mandates come out of the department that have to do with teaching racism and gender and diversity issues. Those are steps into the classroom that we haven't seen very frequently in the last few years. We really are seeing the federal government start to really reach into classrooms in a way that we are not familiar with.

John Yang:

There have been some states have tried to do this, haven't there?

Jennifer Smith Richards:

There have been some of the states that tend to have majority Republican legislatures have advanced several bills that you might have heard of as anti-DEI bills or anti-CRT bills. A number of states have passed anti transgender bathroom bills.

So some of these, you know, reforms have been tested individual states and have been upheld by courts so far in many of the states. So, yes, there is certainly a red state testing ground for many of these ideas that we're seeing play out now at the federal level.

John Yang:

And how have the results been, these testing grounds? What have been the results?

Jennifer Smith Richards:

I can't say for sure in every state, but there have been states where the testing grounds have really held up. So states have been able to adopt laws that restrict pretty severely teaching about racism and teaching about gender. They have been successful in passing bathroom bills that prevent transgender students from using the bathroom or locker room at school that matches their gender identity.

Those have been in place. And a number of states have been pretty successful in limiting just the type of material that can be at a school or in a school library or on a teacher's bookshelf in her classroom.

And so we're seeing kind of a copying of that at the federal level now, where we're hearing for the first time, at least in many years from the federal government that they want to push certain types of curriculum and certain types of teaching into classrooms.

John Yang:

Jennifer Smith Richards of ProPublica, thank you very much.

Jennifer Smith Richards:

Thank you.