The Intersection 2/15

Quick summary:

 The effect on minority communities could be extreme if the Department of Education shuts its doors. But one of its main provisions is backed by an act of Congress and has bipartisan support. Still, the administration will do its best to dismantle a beneficial program for poor and diverse children.

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Hey, y’all,

Donald Trump’s threats to education funding are real and threaten the upward mobility of millions of American students — and that’s the way the president and Republicans like it. The Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) and his own executive orders put the Department of Education on the chopping block, with little or no regard to exactly how the changes will affect Americans.His ploy is to allow states to run the schools, but if that happens, it is unlikely that there will be uniform educational standards across the nation. Florida, for example, bans more books than any other state.  But California passed a 2023 law that bans book bans. This means that while Los Angeles schools can have a useful book on reproductive health like It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health by Robie Harris & Michael Emberly, students in Broward County, Fla., cannot.Legally, it would take an act of Congress to dismantle the agency, but Trump signed an executive order to weaken it. His plan to decentralize education governance was action presaged by Project 2025, the right-wing blueprint for governing, according to our partner Capital B. Meanwhile, he has nominated World Wrestling Entertainment magnate Linda McMahon as its secretary. She is currently being questioned in U.S. Senate hearings.

At the same time, DOGE moved to kill about $1 billion in funding for education research, eliminating critical information on learning in America, according to USA Today.

Ending the Department of Education would wreak havoc across the country generally, but the effect on Black people and other diverse communities could be worse (as the saying goes, “when America catches the flu, Black people catch pneumonia).” Many of these children are from poor areas and federal subsidies support education.

If this changes, education funding could be sent to states to be managed, but the answer going forward would still be complex, Jack Schneider, head of the Center for Education Policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told WBUR.“The main way that the Department of Education supports students from low-income families is through what's called Title I funding,” Schneider said. “This is a part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 that came out of the [former President Lyndon] Johnson administration.