Trump Should Listen To His Gut And End The U.S. Department of Education
It's Time That He Ditches His Campaign's Plan that Expands the DOE through Betsy DeVos' Universal School Choice Agenda
The mainstream media has been buzzing about the latest congressional bill to dissolve the Department of Education and as always, has confused the facts. So, let’s set the record straight.
Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY-4) has filed possibly one of the shortest but most powerful bills to date. Filed on February 9th, 2023, H.R. 899 states that “this bill terminates the Department of Education on December 31, 2023.”
If this bill was filed back in 2023, why is it being mentioned along with recent statements from President Trump?
On July 25th, Trump’s campaign team released his plan to “Save American Education and Give Power Back to Parents.” Since this plan has been announced, the mainstream media has painted it as Trump’s plan to end the federal Department of Education (DOE.) Our own South Carolina Representative Justin Bamberg took to X to share his thoughts on Trump wanting to “close” the federal DOE. While Trump mentioned on X that he needed an Elon Musk on his team to “close up the Department of Education” to move it back to the states, Trump’s campaign team has not implemented that sentiment in his Education Plan. If you look closely, the plan Trump’s campaign team announced depends on growing the Department of Education, rather than dissolving it. Let’s take a look at what the Trump campaign team’s plan actually says about transforming education:
Cut federal funding to any school/program pushing CRT or inappropriate material to children.
Direct the Department of Justice & Education to open investigations into school districts that engaged in race-based discrimination.
Pursue potential violations of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clause.
Remove radicals in the federal Department of Education and reaffirm the president’s ability to remove recalcitrant employees from the job.
Veto the effort to weaponize civics education.
Keep men out of women’s sports.
Create a credentialing body to certify teacher who embrace patriotic values and educate instead of indoctrinate children.
Implement funding preferences and favorable treatment for states and school districts that do the following:
Abolish teacher tenure for grades K-12 and adopt Merit Pay.
Cut number of school administrators and “DEI” bureaucracy.
Adopt a Parental Bill of Rights that includes curriculum transparency and a form of universal school choice.
Implement the direct election of school principals by parents.
Notice how there’s no mention of dissolving the DOE but rather an expansion through universal school choice. Trump’s campaign team is following the will of Betsy DeVos, Trump’s former U.S. Secretary of Education.
Betsy DeVos has been a long-time advocate for universal school choice and it seems through the Trump campaign’s latest plan, she may get her wish. But what she doesn’t want you to know is that universal school choice is about two main drivers: funding and data. The malevolent goal of School Choice is to test and track your child from cradle-to-career, while the government attracts you with financial incentives in order to keep you locked in. Is your child not worth more?
In 2016, Karen Braun wrote an article for Stop Common Core in Michigan that outlined the long relationship Betsy and her husband has had with attempting to pass School Choice in their home state of Michigan:
“Dick and Betsy DeVos have made it a life goal to create this new vision in education. They don’t seek to privatize education completely as some suggest but to create a public/private partnership in education, a system that uses public funds but is managed privately with accountability to the government. Like all investors, the government spends money and expects a reasonable return on the investment.”
Remember Common Core, an educational curriculum Republicans opposed? Well, it has a long history of being pushed through with Universal School Choice. So why are conservatives so quick to pick up the School Choice torch?
There are other red flags when you start diving into the funders of this “School Choice” movement. For example, the globalist Americans for Prosperity-South Carolina chapter announced a six figure campaign for a Universal Education Scholarship Account Program in March 2024.
Don’t you find it interesting that all of these pro-School Choice groups are desperate to get this initiative passed on the state level? That’s because it’s where the control grab starts. South Carolina has codified numerous federal programs into the state law. So, if the federal Department of Education was dismantled, these programs would continue to run in South Carolina.
While many parts of Trump’s campaign team’s Education Plan sounds great, little caveats like implementing Universal School Choice makes one take pause. Why would a proponent of small government advocate for a program that begins with the word “universal”? It would be wonderful to dissolve the Department of Education, but South Carolina and all of the other sovereign states must initiate some housecleaning before they are ready to have guests over.
For the record, South Carolina already has Universal School Choice (Education Scholarship Trust Fund/ESTF) which is projected to cost us $204 million over the next three years. You can see the votes from the SC legislature here: House vote and Senate vote
It is time to repeal all of the federally-funded programs that have been woven into our state law over the past several decades and implement a solution that will truly benefit parents without relinquishing parental rights and their child’s privacy. In future articles related to education, we will provide solutions to South Carolina’s problem. Keep a look out for them!
As for Donald Trump, it looks like Congressman Thomas Massie has some confidence in the direction that Donald Trump’s rhetoric is headed. Maybe Massie knows something we don’t since he is the main driver of the bill to end the DOE.
In closing, we should never allow government to replace the role of parents in America. While I understand that not all children have the best parent(s), we should not allow the government to insert itself into the parental role any child’s life. By giving the government power a child’s education through universal school choice, Americans are willingly forfeiting partial parental control that will data mine their children and eventually lead to full government control of children. Give the government an inch, and they will take a mile before you realize what has happened.