Personally, my thoughts are “if ain’t broken, don’t fix it.” But, it seems to me that the goal has been to cut the Department of Education ever since Trump’s first term when he put Betsy Devos in charge as the Secretary of Education. The most important reason is why they want to eliminate it. The reason Trump and Musk give is that they want to save money, but it seems like there is more to it. It didn’t help that Devos had been a big proponent of charter schools and schools of choice. It was basically like putting a fox in charge of the hen house. Now, there are a lot of foxes who are ruling all of the hen houses, and it’s pretty scary.
According to a discussion on Reddit, eliminating the DOE would have the following consequences:
- Defund Public Schools
- End Federal student aid
- Eliminate national education standards
- End Special Education protection
- Boost for-profit, religious and unregulated schools
I bolded the three outcomes which stood out the most for me. Schools struggle enough with the funding that they have now, so I can’t imagine how they will survive with less money. And without education standards or regulations, schools will be all over the place with their approach with curriculum. I’m reminded of a couple of cases where unscrupulous schools cheated students out of their money. Trump University was one of them.
I’m sure that there are parts of the Department of Education which could be improved, or maybe there is a whole other way of providing direction on how our students are educated. It just seems like this requires a lot more time for reviewing the facts and thinking things through than what’s being allowed.
