Now that Donald Trump has become the President-elect, how well do you know Project 2025 and his policies? What is Project 2025, how will it affect the US education system, and why is it so important for our country to be aware of these policies?
Project 2025 is a 900+ page blueprint of policies meant to reshape the federal government and promote GOP (Republican Party) policies during Donald Trump’s second presidency. Of these policies, one in particular seems to be catching the eye of many: the elimination of the Department of Education. This could affect many students around America, especially those part of Title I, which Project 2025 is also set to eliminate.
Title I is a federal education program dedicated to low-income students nationwide. It is focused on distributing funds across schools serving a high percentage of socioeconomically disadvantaged students.
Donald Trump’s reasoning behind eliminating the Department of Education, which was founded just 45 years ago, is to empower students and families. Trump feels as if students and families should be free to choose from a diverse set of school options and learning environments which best benefit their needs. However, choice schools already give you that freedom by giving you the option to choose what school you want to attend regardless of how those options are funded.
The dismantling of an entire federal department could be a major problem in schools as this could mean getting rid of programs that schools have and reducing resources that ensure everyone in school has an equal opportunity to learn and can pursue higher education beyond.
According to the article “How Project 2025 Would Devastate Public Education,” by Tim Walker for neaToday, 180,300 teaching positions would be lost under Project 2025’s elimination of Title I, affecting 2.8 million students. AP US History teacher Mr. Lowery shares his understanding of Project 2025.
“There is a lot of misconception in the campaign like Democrats very much were trying to pin Project 2025 on an incoming Trump Administration saying that it would be 100% enacted and that wasn’t quite correct. It’s a wishlist. When somebody’s putting together a Christmas wishlist they’re gonna ask for everything that they can knowing they won’t be able to get all of it.”
Project 2025 is extremely different from past presidents’ plans for education. For instance, George W. Bush pushed for the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) to improve the education of disadvantaged kids. This law focused on students receiving special education services. George W. Bush isn’t the only president who has worked hard to ensure disadvantaged kids are able to have equal learning opportunities in classrooms.
Presidents like Barack Obama also had a significant impact on education in America. In the summer of 2009, Obama announced that a piece of the American Recovery and Reinvestment would be used to create a 4.35 billion dollar grant program for states. This would be called Race to the Top. Race to the Top was used to embrace education policies in states. This would include career-ready standards and evaluations of teachers using student test scores. Mr. Lowery speaks on his belief of the Bush and Obama administrations’ impact on current educational policies.
“I don’t know that they have so much. Since Reagan, Republicans have been trying to cut the Department of Education…nobody has succeeded in cutting it. It’s unpopular to cut it. We’ll see if the Trump administration does.”
During the duration of Trump’s campaign, he has stated multiple times if given a second term, he will begin mass deportation of millions of people. To put this in perspective, 14.3% of the US population are immigrants or one in seven residents in the United States. This is roughly 47.8 million people as of 2023.
This could have a significant impact on millions of people in the US, especially the 10.9 million Mexican immigrants who reside in the United States considering only 62% reach secondary school and only 45% finish. Mr. Lowery explains how he feels immigrant students will be affected.
“I got told off by a student (at a previous school) where I was like stop getting on your phone and when I pulled the student into the hallway we had a conversation and what she said to me was I have more important things than what you’re saying right now, my family is deciding which members of my family need to leave…but that’s the level of stress some kids are going through. They need to be able to talk to someone… if they’re worried school isn’t a confidential source they’re going to keep that inside and it becomes detrimental to their education.”
While Project 2025 and the elimination of the Department of Education continue to be controversial topics within Trump’s Administration, it is very unlikely that they will happen. The policy, though bold, has political challenges. Noting that Trump has to go through Congress to shut down the federal agency, it is doubtful that it will be eliminated.
