The continuing series on what we Americans can expect from our new president……

Trump is NO friend to education but does that mean that it will become an elective for life?

Donald Trump will be serving a second presidential term, and with both chambers of Congress likely under Republican leadership—though the House is still to be decided— the future of education in the U.S. could starkly change. 

Trump has pledged to dismantle the Department of Education, cut federal funding for schools teaching critical race theory, and bar transgender female athletes from participating in school sports.

“The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail. He will deliver,” Trump-Vance Transition Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told TIME in a statement. 

Trump’s transition team did not respond to specific questions regarding which of his policies will take priority come January. 

Here’s what to know.

Dismantling the Department of Education

On the campaign trail, the President-elect vowed to eliminate the Department of Education, which has been a cabinet-level agency since 1980. The Department takes on numerous functions: designating federal aid through Title I, which gives state and local funding for schools serving low-income families, handing out Pell Grants, and regulating student loan relief through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program or income-based repayment plans. 

There more….please read on….

https://time.com/7174651/what-trump-winning-means-for-education/

With that said a closer look at the possibility with the elimination of the Dept of Ed…..the link below is from a conserv paper….

President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to cut the Department of Education and move its responsibilities back “to the states.” The change would be an unprecedented move as no Cabinet department has ever been dissolved without being reorganized in some way.

The Washington Examiner spoke to three leading education policy experts, who explained how cutting the Education Department would work, if it is realistic, and what the effects would be.

“I think it’d be fine,” Frederick M. Hess, senior fellow and director of education policy studies for American Enterprise Institute said. “The Department of Education is extraordinarily bureaucratic. It creates extraordinary amounts of red tape for the nation’s schools, especially relative to the money it actually provides.”

Hess said that under the Obama and Biden administrations, the department became “a political entity frequently engaged in promoting particular ideological nostrums” which he called “massively problematic.” He added that the two Democratic presidents “make the best possible case for abolishing the department. So, yeah, I think downsizing the department, or even abolishing it, is certainly wholly sensible.”

How Trump’s promise to abolish the Department of Education would work

In my opinion every word of that report is bullshit!

Then there is a view from the other side of the political spectrum….

The consequences of President-elect Donald Trump fulfilling his promise to abolish the Department of Education could be widespread, CNN reports.

“I say it all the time, I’m dying to get back to do this. We will ultimately eliminate the federal Department of Education,” Trump said during a September rally in Wisconsin.

“We will drain the government education swamp and stop the abuse of your taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate America’s youth with all sorts of things that you don’t want to have our youth hearing,” he added.

The establishment of the Department of Education as a Cabinent-level agency goes back to 1979 when former President Jimmy Carter signed it into legislation. Before Carter, federal education programs were housed in other agencies. It’s unclear how Trump would handle shutting the department down, but the move would have reverberating effects on K-12 schools and higher education.

One of the Department of Education’s biggest tasks is administering federal funding to K-12 and managing the federal student loan and financial aid programs. Funding programs under the federal agency for K-12 schools include the Title I program, an aid to low-income families, and the IDEA program, which helps provide money to meet the needs of children with disabilities. Programs like these could be in danger with the abolishment of the Department of Education.

The agency also doles out roughly $30 billion annually to low-income college students through the Pell grant program and manages about $1.6 trillion of student loans.

https://www.binnews.com/content/2024-11-12-heres-what-could-happen-if-trump-shuts-down-department-of-education/

My feeling is that education is a vital part of life and any attempt to eliminate or lessen its impact is a disaster waiting to happen.
Will Trump make good on his promise to eliminate the Department of Education or will he decide on something less?

Texas is trying a template for the rest of the nation on education…..

A new Texas public school curriculum criticized for focusing too much on Christianity passed a preliminary Texas State Board of Education vote on Tuesday. A measure to reject the state-produced Bluebonnet Learning curriculum was defeated in an 8-7 vote, with three Republicans siding with the board’s four Democrats, the New York Times reports. It is up to schools whether they adopt the curriculum—but those who do so can get an extra $40 per student per year. A final vote on the curriculum is expected Friday.

• The K-5 curriculum incorporates lessons from the Bible as early as kindergarten, with a “Golden Rule” kindergarten lesson focusing heavily on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and making only brief mentions of other religions. A first grade “Sharing Stories” unit includes the Parable of the Prodigal Son from the New Testament, reports CNN. Critics say the Christian stories and ideas are presented without being introduced as religious beliefs.
• In a press release days before the vote, Texas AFT, one of the state’s largest teachers’ unions, said it “believes that not only do these materials violate the separation of church and state and the academic freedom of our classroom, but also the sanctity of the teaching profession.
• Critics say the curriculum has other problems, including the downplaying of the role of racism and slavery in American history, the San Antonio Express-News reports. A kindergarten lesson instructs teachers to tell children that Founding Fathers including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson “realized that slavery was wrong and founded the country so that Americans could be free,” ignoring the fact that both men were slaveowners, reports the Texas Tribune.
• Supporters say the Bible plays a big part in American history, the Times reports. The curriculum will “allow our students to better understand the connection of history, art, community, literature, and religion on pivotal events like the signing of the US Constitution, the Civil Rights Movement and the American Revolution,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement.
• “Of course, the Bible is an important part of history and American society. And of course, students should learn about the Bible as literature and history in the context of a secular curriculum,” Charles Haynes, a senior fellow for religious liberty at the Freedom Forum, tells CNN. “But inserting faith-based lessons into public school classrooms, which sounds like what is intended here, is not the study of history or literature. It is religious indoctrination.”
• The Times notes that as conservative Christians push to expand the role of religion in public schools, similar lessons may be adopted by other states, and the Texas curriculum “may also offer a playbook for the White House” after Donald Trump returns to the presidency.

Forced indoctrination.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”