Donald Trump had the right idea about education during his first administration: judge potential employees by their skills and experience, not their degrees. Open up a world of bright futures for people who don't have a bachelor's degree but yearn to train and work hard.
In fact, aside from launching Operation Warp Speed to speed up the development of a COVID-19 vaccine, Trump's most valuable official act was probably signing the rule that federal jobs should not require a bachelor's degree. unless it is really necessary.
Trump and other Republicans saw that the educational vision that President Obama had pushed (which consisted of a vague common curriculum for public schools followed by a “college for all”) had alienated working-class Americans. Well-paying manufacturing jobs had virtually disappeared and people were looking for a new middle-class future.
The growth of technology indicated to Obama's educational advisers that success would depend on a college education, preferably in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM. But that was not a message that many working-class people wanted to hear. It seemed to them an elitist judgment that they are nothing without a four-year degree.
Obama was right to a point: The greatest growth in well-paying jobs will occur among those that require a college degree. But Trump was right, too: 45% of bachelor's degree holders are underemployed even a decade after graduating, working in jobs that don't require a degree, and 28% of people with a two-year associate's degree earn more than the average. Four-year college graduate. Meanwhile, more than a third of college students do not complete their degree in six years, and almost none of those students finish their education.
The problem is that high schools have become so focused on college that students not planning a higher education typically receive little or no guidance about what careers they might consider, according to a recent Gallup poll. There is a wide and rapidly expanding variety of possibilities.
So while Trump opening federal jobs to more people without degrees was a start, schools can do much more to prepare young people to be citizens and members of the workforce. That would be a much more productive path for Trump to address education during his second administration than the issues he's been debating lately, especially since he'll have some trouble realizing his ambitions even with a docile Congress.
Shutting down the U.S. Department of Education, as the president-elect has threatened to do, would require congressional approval, and eliminating a Cabinet-level agency would be difficult to achieve even for some Republican lawmakers. Their responsibilities could be returned to the Department of the Interior (where they originated before the Department of Education was created in 1979), but what would be the point? Laws requiring equal treatment of girls and women in education would still have to be enforced; college financial aid applications would still need to be processed; Pell grants and student loans would still need to be monitored. No matter where the necessary personnel are located, the work will have to be done.
Even as Trump promises to get the federal government out of schools (although in reality, now that the No Child Left Behind Act is dead and the Department of Education does little to interfere with public education), he wants to meddle further by defunding any school that teaches about LGBTQ+ issues or “critical race theory.” While these topics make provocative conversation topics, they are not an important part of learning in most districts. These are decisions that need to be made at the state and local level, and voters who don't like what their school board decides can oust its members in the next election. They very rarely do it.
Another pillar of Trump's platform, school choice, appears to face public resistance. All three state votes on the issue this fall were against the election, two of them in conservative states. Nebraska voters overturned an earlier state decision to spend taxpayer money to allow parents to send their children to private schools. Parents depend on and support their local schools more than elected Republicans could understand.
Trump tends to favor disruption over constructive policymaking, but he has already made non-university pathways a signature educational statement, and the idea has become popular among both parties. Now is the perfect time to take advantage of that. His administration could use corporate tax credits and public-private partnerships to help create apprenticeships, placing young people in blue-collar jobs with a future, as Switzerland has done for years. Instead of deconstructing education, your education managers could reconstruct it through more relevant and exciting curricula with practical applications.
The president-elect's pick for Secretary of Education, former professional wrestling executive Linda McMahon, has so far remained silent about her priorities, although vouchers are likely among them. But just before his appointment was announced, he praised the Swiss system of management apprenticeships for high school students, which lead to executive and professional positions. I have long thought that the United States should emulate the model; a small but very successful program in Denver does it.
Both Presidents George W. Bush and Obama saw education as an important part of their administrations, but stumbled on the issue due to sometimes harsh and unrealistic policies. Ultimately, No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top did little to improve learning, excite students, or close achievement gaps. Trump has a chance to build on what he's already said he believes in and become a true education president.
