WASHINGTON—The nation’s two big teachers’ unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, are blasting anti-worker and anti-public school President Donald Trump’s detailed plan to dismantle the federal Department of Education—a plan he announced right in the middle of Education Week.
Trump cannot officially abolish the department; only Congress can do that. But earlier this year, he had Education Secretary Linda McMahon, a GOP donor and former chief of the pro wrestling circuit, World Wide Entertainment, fire half the staff.
McMahon also trashed diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, forced local schools and universities to do so on pain of losing federal aid, reversed the goals of the Office of Civil Rights, and generally ignored students with disabilities and their needs.
On Nov. 18, Trump gave McMahon further detailed orders to move remaining pieces of her department to other agencies with no expertise in education. Student loans, for example, have been shuffled off to the Small Business Administration.
Trump’s detailed moves angered both AFT President Randi Weingarten, a New York City civics teacher and NEA President Becky Pringle, a Philadelphia science teacher. The two said Trump’s actions hurt kids, especially the kids who need help the most.
“This move is neither streamlining nor reform,” said Weingarten. “It’s an abdication and abandonment of America’s future. Rather than show leadership in helping all students seize their potential, it walks away from that responsibility.
“What’s happening now isn’t about slashing red tape. If that were the goal, teachers could help them do it, and we invite Donald Trump and Linda McMahon to sit down with educators and hear from the people who actually do this work every day. Teachers know how to make the federal role more effective, efficient and supportive of real learning, if only the administration would listen.
“Spreading services across multiple departments will create more confusion, more mistakes and more barriers” for kids and parents.” And it will undermine public schools as places where diverse voices come together and where pluralism, the bedrock of our democracy, is strengthened.”
That’s actually the unstated, but real, goal of Trump, McMahon, the radical right, and the MAGA legions which back their dismantling drive. They all hate the department for ideological reasons and because it actually helps students of color, who are the majority in U.S. public schools as a whole.
The right-wingers prefer private schools, and schools without teachers unions—along with sanitized U.S. history and teaching by rote rather than teaching students how to think for themselves.
“We are now watching the federal government shirk its responsibility to all kids. That is unacceptable,” Weingarten said. She urged lawmakers to grab the reins back from Trump in battles over federal education dollars. Unfortunately, the House Republican majority, in its draft money bill for schools for the year that began Oct. 1, wanted to cut K-12 aid by up to 80%, depending on the program.
“AFT will continue to fight back, including in court, because every American, no matter their background, deserves a strong, well-resourced public school that forges a future full of purpose, promise, and possibility,” Weingarten, who also has a law degree, promised.
Pringle, president of the nation’s largest union, agreed, noting the irony of Trump and McMahon unveiling how they’d dismantle the department during Education Week, Nov.17-21. She also noted Trump doesn’t even want to feed the kids, having gone to the U.S. Supreme Court—unsuccessfully—to try to stop food aid. She called his dismantling plan illegal.
“Not only do they want to starve and steal from our students—they want to rob them of their futures,” Pringle elaborated. “Nothing is more important than the success of our students, and educators and parents will not be silent as Trump and McMahon turn their backs on our students, families, and communities to pay for billionaire tax cuts.
“Ensuring a brighter future for our children should be a top priority for any administration, but this administration is taking every chance it can to hack away at the very protections and services our students need. Just last week, they went to the Supreme Court to avoid feeding families. And they’re still pushing to gut healthcare programs.
“Now, they’re neglecting the basic responsibility to educate our children. It’s cruel. It’s shameful. And our students deserve so much better.”
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