The president of the United States, Donald Trump, has indicated that he intends to advance with plans to dismantle the Department of Education, despite the mixed signals of his administration.
“Well, I just want to do it. I mean, we are starting the process, ”Trump said in a signature ceremony at the Oval office on Thursday.
A directive was expected to reduce the education department to be among the orders Trump signed on Thursday.
But in the hours prior to Trump's public appearance in the Oval office, the White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, denounced the reports of an announcement as “more false news.”
Even so, Trump has not hidden his intention to close the Department of Education, a point he reviewed on Thursday. The journalists had asked if he had “doubts” that would lead to a delay, something that the president refuted.
“We are trying for schools to return to the United States. Let the states manage schools, ”Trump said, misrepresenting the functions of the department.
The Department of Education is responsible for distributing federal financial aid, conducting educational research and guaranteeing school compliance with anti -discrimination and accessibility policies.
It does not establish school curricula, a decision that remains to state and local officials.
Even so, Trump doubled the idea that the department was a barrier to control states over their schools.
“If they manage their own education, they will make someone sitting in Washington much better, DC, that could not matter less to students in the west,” he said.
When asked about what would happen with the distribution of the Department of Student Federal Loans and Subsidies, Trump proposed to assign that responsibility to other agencies.
“That would be taken to the administration or trade of treasure or small businesses,” Trump said, naming other departments.
“And we have really had that discussion today. I don't think education should handle loans. That is not your business. I think it will be brought to small businesses maybe. “
Rumors of an executive order
Trump has been in a campaign to reduce the size of the federal government, moving to close entire agencies and fire thousands of workers.
“We are reducing it,” Trump said about the size of the government on Thursday. “You can't have that kind of fat. It is a swelling like nobody has seen before. “
The Republican leader has already destroyed offices such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), closing its headquarters and reducing its staff to a skeleton team of essential employees.
But no president in recent history has tried to close a federal department, something that would require the approval of Congress.
The media, including the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, obtained drafts of an executive order that offered an idea of how Trump would address such a feat.
The drafts asked the Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, designated by Trump, to take “all the necessary steps” to reduce the department to “the maximum appropriate extension and allowed by law.”
Trump has previously faced criticism for exceeding the limits of his executive authority, even by retaining mandatory funds and undermining other entities that the Congress established, such as Usaid.
The Democrats immediately launched the news that the disappearance of the department was imminent.
At a press conference on Thursday, the leader of the Senate minority, Chuck Schumer, argued that the closure of the department would irreparably damage access to education, particularly for low -income Americans and students with disabilities.
“The radius of explosion of this order will damage almost all children, each teacher, each family and each community,” said Schumer.
“Taking a chainsaw to the Department of Education and undermine your mission of educating our next generation would be horrible for our schools, our families, it is assumed that the secretary of children McMahon should serve.”
What are the criticisms?
As with many of the agencies Trump has tried to dismantle, the Department of Education has long been a conservative anger objective.
In his campaign for a second term last year, Trump echoed the right -wing criticisms that the education system had become too “aroused”, too influenced by social justice priorities.
On the 2024 Republican Party platform, for example, Trump and his allies said “they would guarantee safe learning environments of political entrometry.”
Part of its strategy has been to close the Department of Education, which enforces policies such as Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex.
It also guarantees school compliance with federal laws that guarantee the same access to education for students with disabilities.
In addition, the department plays a financial role in the country's education system, providing approximately 8 percent of funds for public primary and secondary schools.
It also distributes federal research subsidies and funds to cover the financial assistance of students in schools and universities. In general, the Department of Education exercises approximately $ 102 billion, representing 0.9 percent of the general federal budget by 2025.
But Trump has outlined a vision in which the responsibilities of the Department of Education reallocate the individual states.
“We want to transfer education to the United States, where it belongs,” Trump said at the first meeting of the cabinet of his second term on February 26. “Iowa should have education. Indiana should administer your own education.”
But politicians such as Senator Bernie Sanders de Vermont warned that redistributing the tasks of the department would simply increase fiscal burden in individual states, particularly rural with less resources to resort.
“Do we need to make the Department of Education more efficient? I think we do it. Do we need to destroy it and havoc in the families of the working class in this country? Absolutely not, ”Sanders said at a press conference on Thursday.
ABC News reported that the Trump administration sank its executive order planned Thursday about questions about a possible public reaction.
The legality of Trump's order
The Department of Education has roots that date back to the nineteenth century, under President Andrew Jackson, one of Trump's presidential idols.
But the modern entity began to take shape in the twentieth century, since the federal government began to assume a more assertive role in public education, partly due to civil rights issues.
In 1979, then President Jimmy Carter established the Department of Education as known today, to unite several federal programs under the same umbrella. Its leader has been a publication at the Cabinet level since then.
But for so long, there has been a conservative rejection of the department, as a possible obstacle to the rights of states.
In addition to pressing for the closure of the department, Trump has also tried to remodel US education in other ways.
He and Secretary McMahon are vocal supporters of “school choice” policies that would allow parents to use taxpayers' funds, normally assigned to public education, pay for private schools.
Trump has also said that his administration is working to reverse what he believes are ideologically promoted ideas for racial and gender equality in education.
But Trump himself has not been shy in conditioning federal support in the fulfillment of his political priorities.
On Tuesday, for example, Trump wrote on social networks that universities must take energetic measures against students who participate in “illegal protests” or face consequences, including a stop in federal funds.
His words were largely understood that they referred to pro-palestinian manifestations, but they were ambiguous enough to include other protests as well.
