Too many kids will be left behind if Trump guts Education Department
Only legislation passed by Congress can create a federal agency. And only legislation passed by Congress can eliminate a federal agency.
According to every analysis, the Trump administration can't lawfully eliminate the U.S. Department of Education through an executive order, though it seems likely to try.
It seems certain, however, that the administration will do everything in its power to undermine federal oversight and support for education, sabotaging our nation's competitiveness in the new technology-based economy. Because the federal government is responsible for monitoring civil rights and the fair distribution of resources — a role this administration derides as "woke" — students in underserved communities will be left behind, and educational disparities will explode. And all so these vital resources can be diverted to fill the already overflowing coffers of billionaires.
The administration already has demonstrated its contempt for public education; the nominee for education secretary is an extremist advocate for diverting public funds to private schools who lied about her own education. She has been instructed to "put herself out of a job."
Politicians have been targeting the Education Department since it was elevated to Cabinet level in 1979. President Ronald Reagan campaigned on the issue the very next year. During a 2011 presidential debate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry infamously listed it as one of three agencies he would abolish, along with Commerce, while forgetting the third — Energy — which he went on to lead during the first Trump administration.
But opposition to federal oversight of education goes back nearly 160 years, and while most opponents of the department publicly cite "local control" as their motivation, hostility to racial equity has always played a role. President Andrew Johnson signed a bill creating the first Education Department just after the Civil War. Partially due to Southern states' resentment of Reconstruction and the education of formerly enslaved people, the department was demoted after just a year to an office within the Interior Department.
It wasn't until President Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty" that the federal government's role expanded. Passage of the landmark Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965 aimed to close educational achievement gaps and provided the first significant federal funding to primary and secondary schools. Title I, the cornerstone of the act, provides much-needed resources to schools with a high percentage of students from low-income families so that all students can have access to a quality education.
The act has been reauthorized by Republican and Democratic presidents over the years, most notably with President Bill Clinton's Improving America's Schools Act of 1994, President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 and President Barack Obama's Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015.
The century-plus campaign to sabotage federal support for education has not dimmed Americans' commitment to educational equality. Only 29% of Americans support abolishing the Education Department. In fact, nearly 70% of voters want to see education funding increased.
The tech billionaire who holds an inexplicably outsized role in the current administration has declared his preference for displacing American-born engineers with immigrants who can be employed at lower salaries. His claim that American tech workers are in short supply is false, but if the administration is successful at killing — or at least crippling — the Education Department, his false claim will become a reality.
Marc H. Morial is president and CEO of the National Urban League and was mayor of New Orleans from 1994 to 2002. He writes a twice-monthly column for the Sun-Times.
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