The American education system is poised to become a battleground for funding, diversity, and immigration issues under President Trump’s administration.

In a media briefing on December 13, hosted by Ethnic Media Services, a panel of experts discussed the changes that could be seen in the educational system with the incoming Trump presidency. 

Speakers

  • Pedro Noguera, Dean, USC Rossier School of Education
  • Thomas Toch, Director, FutureEd, Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy
  • Thomas A. Saenz, President and General Counsel, MALDEF, Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund

During his campaign, Trump has proposed several significant changes, including ending the U.S. Department of Education, rolling back federal funding for public schools, particularly those that prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, supporting vouchers that would allow parents, including wealthy individuals, to use taxpayer money to send their children to private schools, and overturning Title IX, a law that prohibits sex-based discrimination, which was expanded under Biden to include sexual orientation- and gender-based discrimination.

In late November, Trump appointed Linda McMahon, a prominent Republican donor and co-chair of his presidential transition team, as the next Secretary of Education. McMahon previously served as the head of the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term and founded, served as president, and was the CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).

Pedro Noguera cautioned that Trump’s proposed plans to dismantle the Department of Education may face significant resistance, including from unexpected sources such as other Republicans in Congress and the Senate. While eliminating the department would not eliminate public education entirely, it could jeopardize oversight and accountability.

Approximately 90% of general K-12 public education is funded by state and local governments, while the remaining 10% — amounting to around $800 billion in 2021 — comes from the federal government.

“There’s more federal funding at stake in compensatory cases, like special education and schools in impoverished areas,” explained Noguera. Many of these kids are from Republican families and areas, and cutbacks to that support are going to get pushback.”

Title I, a grant program established in 1965 to support disadvantaged schools, commits the federal government to funding 40% of per-pupil special education costs. However, actual funding has consistently fallen short of this target, with actual funding remaining below 20% and dropping to less than 13% in 2023.

Schools with at least 40% of their student body from low-income families are also eligible for Title I. In 2022, these and similar Title I funds for impoverished schools collectively amounted to $15.6 billion. Approximately 63% of public schools in the country’s over 13,000 districts were eligible for these funds.

During his first and upcoming administrations, Trump has also supported private school choice proposals, including tax credit vouchers. However, these proposals were overwhelmingly rejected by voters in states such as Arizona, Nebraska, Kentucky, and Colorado in 2018.

Despite this opposition, particularly from their own voter base, the backing of wealthy conservatives has led to the creation or expansion of private school voucher or savings programs in nearly a dozen states in recent years.

Despite the resistance to policies like these, often from their own voter base, Noguera stated that “a lot of what is driving the administration right now is ideology aimed at launching and sustaining culture wars, like attacks on transgender students and DEI … without bridging the educational gaps our students face.”

According to data from the Education Department, 54% of Americans aged 16 to 74 read below a sixth-grade level.

“Our demographics are changing to include more students traditionally left out of our nation’s education priorities, and I don’t see the incoming administration’s policies doing better by them,” said Thomas Toch.

Higher education policies supported by Trump include taxing endowments, which constitute nearly half of the total held by 22 out of nearly 6,000 U.S. colleges and universities. Additionally, he has reduced oversight of for-profit institutions, such as the unaccredited Trump University, which ceased operations in 2010 due to several lawsuits. Furthermore, Trump has cut federal Pell Grants and work-study programs like AmeriCorps, and he has ended loan forgiveness and initiatives aimed at promoting DEI.

Toch further emphasized that international students are also at risk, considering the administration’s promises to limit both legal and illegal immigration into the United States. This is particularly concerning given Trump’s appointment of Stephen Miller, a first-term immigration hardliner, as the White House deputy chief of staff for policy.

Legal challenges pose significant obstacles to other Trump-supported policies, such as immigration status-dependent public school attendance and the rollbacks of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Thomas Saenz highlighted the legal precedents that stand in the way of these policies.

Saenz specifically mentioned Plyler v. Doe, a 1982 Supreme Court decision that guarantees every child the right to attend free K-12 public school. He asserted that this decision is not in any imminent danger of being overturned, despite the fact that there have been instances where court majorities have overturned long-standing precedents in areas such as reproductive choice and affirmative action. However, Saenz emphasized that Plyler is not the result of a decades-long overturning campaign by the right, as is the case with the other two cases.

The Plyler decision, now incorporated into federal statutory law, would also safeguard public K-12 school campuses from raids by ICE or individual immigration officers.

When the Supreme Court overturned Trump’s attempt to eliminate DACA in 2020, it lacked the six-to-three Republican-appointed majority it currently possesses.

However, eliminating DACA would be more challenging in Trump’s second term compared to the first attempt, which was accomplished through an announcement by the Attorney General to modify an Obama-era policy.

In 2022, the Biden administration bolstered DACA through a formal regulatory rule-making process. Consequently, eliminating DACA would necessitate an extensive process involving a public proposal in the Federal Register, accompanied by public comment and government response periods.

Saenz emphasized that many of the anti-discrimination protections and civil rights we rely on in education are even more safeguarded by legislation that would compel action from a Congress, despite its formal Republican control, which is evenly split in the House of Representatives, making it difficult to enact anything without unanimous Republican support.

He anticipates “a daily barrage of rhetoric that is anti-immigrant, anti-DEI, anti-civil rights and anti-public education, including overstated powers of the President to do what he wants. “It’s a calculated campaign to convince local decision makers, including school district officials, to withdraw on their own from these issues … But that rhetoric can’t be made real in most cases without congressional action.”

Saenz expressed his greatest concern that rhetoric still carries repercussions. People become fearful even if it is not followed up by concrete action. We witnessed this phenomenon during the first Trump administration. Therefore, we must diligently prepare for this rhetoric and remember that the President and his cabinet members do not possess dictatorial power. They must adhere to due process for the significant changes they aspire to implement.

 

Images provided by EMS.