Project 2025 - 11. Dept. of Education
I’ll be jumping ahead a little bit to tackle Section 11: The Department of Education in the wake of Donald Trump's upcoming executive orders and budget cuts. Stay tuned for Sections 9 and 10.
This section of Project 2025 is written by Lindsey M. Burke, Director of the Center of Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation and conservative member of the George Mason University Board of Visitors.
Burke cuts to the chase, stating that the Department of Education should be completely eliminated, limiting federal education policy, which includes the requirement that states, districts, and schools meet certain standards. She says dissolving the DOE would add "diversity" to schools, which here has nothing to do with backgrounds or abilities, but the idea of including faith-based, career, and military education. She wants the "red tape" removed and to "focus far more on bolstering the workforce skills." The new trend in red-state education: liberal arts bad; plumbing apprenticeship good.
Burke lays out plans to improve the education system after decimating the DOE, including "treating taxpayers like investors...generat(ing) economic productivity” and "safeguarding civil rights," though this should be understood as a means of "rejecting gender ideology and critical race theory."
So "civil rights" minus the underrepresented populations. Got it.
NEEDED REFORMS
Burke discusses the decline in 4th and 8th grade test cores since first being administered in 1990.
"Average 4th-grade math scores declined five points, and average 8th-grade math scores declined eight points." - Project 2025
However, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which the DOE calls the "Nation's Report Card," 8th graders scored a full 12 points higher than in 1990, and 4th graders a whopping 23 points higher. Still, they scored lower 8 and 5, respectively, than in 2019, likely affected by the COVID lockdowns. When compared to 1992 reading assessments, students averaged at about the same in 2024.
It's important to note here that when reading and math scores were at their highest schools were implementing the new "Common Core Standards," which changed student assessments and likely altered the data.
Burke complains that there are too many "non-teaching staff" in public schools, "doubling since 1992," resulting in fewer taxpayer dollars entering the classroom. She doesn't take the time to list these "expendables," but might have considered your child's school administrators, counselors, librarians, nurses, custodians, cafeteria workers, secretaries, resource officers, coaches, social workers, psychologists, and special education paraeducators. These are the "non-teaching staff" that keep a school running safely and smoothly, and a healthy place for a child of all abilities.
She might also have considered that school shootings in the U.S. increased 600% between 1992 and 2024, requiring more law enforcement presence, and thus government funding, on school grounds.
OFFICE OF ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION (OESE)
Remove Title 1, Part A, Burke says, which provides federal funding for lower-income school districts and outsource to DHHS. However, according to Section 15 of Project 2025 - Department of Health and Human Services, a new conservative administration would end Head Start programs all together, and focus on funding and encouraging school children from two-parent families, most of whom do not attend low-income schools. Everyone else would likely lose funding.
"Families comprised of a married mother, father, and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society." - Project 2025
Current aid in Title I is also connected to low property tax rates--again, in low-income areas--including tribal lands. Removal of these funds would coincide with the Administration's plans to step away from tribal education all together, transferring it wholly to the Bureau of Indian Education.
Now, while it's important to acknowledge tribal sovereignty, as we've seen with law enforcement on many reservations, pulling away completely and taking your funds with you can have a devastating impact on tribal nations. Currently the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) Crisis is directly impacted by a lack of funds and coordination with state, local, and tribal police due to jurisdictional regulations. These same regulations would have an impact on schools, and likely remove a great source of funding, leaving many tribes and their children high and dry and without the same opportunities as non-Native school children.
After outsourcing to DHHS, Burke says, all other programs at OESE should be eliminated. This would include:
School Achievement and School Accountability Programs
Oxnard Adult School
OFFICE OF CAREER, TECHNICAL, AND ADULT EDUCATION
Burke wants all programs moved to the Department of Labor unless they are tribal, which would be transferred to the Bureau of Indian Education.
Now, I want to stop here and do a little math. Because the 2025 budget for the Bureau of Indian Education is $1.5 billion. Meanwhile, the budget for the Department of Education is $238 billion. Currently there are roughly 559,819 (2023) Native school children, and 49.6 billion total school children (doesn't specify non-Native) living in the United States. Therefore, each Native child would receive roughly $2679.44 under these new rules, while public school children would receive $4798.38.
OFFICE OF SPECIAL EDUCATION AND REHABILITATIVE SERVICES (OSERS)
Burke, again, wants to outsource funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to Health and Human Services (HHS), and push out Native students with disabilities. However, the funds the Bureau of Indian Education receives for disabled students comes directly from the Department of Education.
Any funding for discrimination of people with disabilities will also be outsourced to the DOJ or Office for Civil Rights.
Currently Trump is attempting to purge 5000 DOJ employees for their connection to the January 6th investigation, leaving the role of the department up in the air.
Burke goes on to take large swipes at multiple departments, including eliminating or moving anything to do with postsecondary (college) education to the Department of Labor, moving portions of the Institution of Education Sciences to the Census Bureau, and reversing the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, which transferred all subsidized and unsubsidized loans from private-sector lending (at much higher interest rates) to federal loan programs.
OFFICE OF CIVIL RIGHTS (OCR)
Burke wants to pull the OCR from the DOE and move it to the DOJ, taking it out of schools and education and making it a purely legal issue. She then goes on to list several offices and bureaus slated for closure, including Office of the Inspector General, Office of Finance and Operations, and Office of Communications and Outreach.
Now comes the "Department of Education Reorganization Act" aka the "Liquidation Authority Act," what we've all heard whispers (shouts) about since Trump announced his 2024 presidential campaign: the gutting of the Department of Education as we know it.
In order to gut the DOE Congress will need to pass said act, though it's unlikely they'll veer from the path on which they've marched so devotedly for the past four weeks. But there are some pretty big changes ahead if Trump and his team follow Project 2025 as closely as they have up to this point.
CHARTER SCHOOL GRANT PROGRAMS
Burke wants more money for charter schools, small independent public schools that follow curriculum decided upon by local education agencies, including STEM, vocational schools, and even the possibility of religious instruction. Burke would like to lessen federal restrictions on charter schools.
CIVIL RIGHTS DATA COLLECTION
Burke disagrees with the OCR's Mandatory Civil Rights Data Collection, which included the use of the term "nonbinary," stating that it violates student privacy and Title IX.
STUDENT ASSISTANCE GENERAL PROVISIONS ET AL.
Burke recommends rescinding the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, which was signed into law by George W. Bush in 2007 as a means to forgive partial student loans for students who went into federal, state, local, and not-for-profit jobs after college. She lists off other forgiveness programs and their costs to taxpayers, which she says is upwards of $120 billion, though she doesn't state over what period of time. However, considering 42.7 million Americans have a federal student loan debt of $1.773 trillion, I'd say the system in place is a pretty good deal as college tuition continues to rise.
NONDISCRIMINATION ON THE BASIS OF SEX IN EDUCATION PROGRAMS OR ACTIVITIES RECEIVING FEDERAL FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE (TITLE IX)
Burke claims the Biden Administration sought to "trample women's and girls' athletic opportunities."
I'm going to assume she means the trans women in women's sports issue here, which, like a broken record, I will remind everyone that there are over 500,000 students in the NCAA, and less than 10 trans athletes. There are roughly 17.3 million high school athletes. According to stats in 2023 only 5 of those were transgender.
Burke goes on to tout the usual need for "biological sex recognized at birth"--which, by the way, isn't always so black-and-white--and strengthen protections for faith based schools, programs, and activities. But at this point, those don't apply to public schools, right? Right?
She brings up the idea of socially transitioning at school, and that it "puts girls and women in danger of physical harm," and that doing so without parental consent "increases the likelihood that children will seek...puberty blockers."
"Currently, all three stages of treatment for gender dysphoria in children and adolescents require consent from all parties with parental responsibility." - The National Library of Medicine
"On its first day in office," Burke says, "the next Administration should signal its intent...that "sex" is properly understood as a fixed biological fact."
"This unhealthy road is paved by an ongoing and purposeful attack against the ordinary and longstanding use and understanding of biological and scientific terms, replacing the immutable biological reality of sex with an internal, fluid, and subjective sense of self unmoored from biological facts." - Executive Order, January 20th, 2025
Burke goes on to say all investigations should be dropped, districts are free to drop Biden-era policies, and that parents should have full access to a child's educational records. But she fails to specify which parent in the case of a custody dispute, or if a child is in a foster home or comes from an unsafe home, or if the child is emancipated.
TITLE VI - SCHOOL DISCIPLINE AND DISPARATE IMPACT
Burke discusses President Obama's "Dear Colleague Letter," claiming it pursues "racial parity" when discussing school discipline post-sexual harassment. However, when reading the entire thing (the pdf is available online), there is no such reference to race or ethnicity. It's a standard, and kind of dry, discussion of steps school officials must take should there be a claim of sexual harassment on or off campus. Burke states that the Trump Administration should go back and re-evaluate all Title VI cases--a federal law that prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin--of sexual harassment and direct the DOJ to no longer investigate them if race is the only issue.
ASSISTANCE TO STATES FOR THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES
Burke states that, thanks to Obama's Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), disabled students are being denied special education services because of their race or ethnicity. However, according to the National Center for Learning Disabilities, students of color are disproportionately overrepresented in special education, meaning they are often miscategorized as being "special needs." And therefore, IDEA was used as a means to further evaluate these students to put them in the proper educational setting, not pull them out of necessary special education programs due to their race. Rescinding IDEA would inevitably label more students of color as "special needs," instead of allowing them to be challenged in a typical classroom with their peers.
PROVIDE SCHOOL MEALS TO CHILDREN IN NEED; DO NOT USE FEDERAL MEALS TO SUPPORT RADICAL IDEOLOGY
The USDA, Burke claims, "tried to advance a radical political agenda using the federal school meal program." This included free lunches over the summer. This included giving extra EBT (food stamp) money to families who missed school lunches during the COVID-19 pandemic. This included free school lunches in the 2022-2023 school year for all public school and pre-K students.
This "radical ideology" meant kids didn't go hungry.
Burke goes on to say that school lunches have become an "entitlement" and are "some of the most wasteful federal programs in Washington." She blames the USDA for requiring all schools to update their discrimination policies to include gender identity and sexual orientation, and says the next Administration should prohibit them from changing any wording in Title IX.
Hungry kids. Safe kids.
PHASE OUT EXISTING INCOME-DRIVEN REPAYMENT (IDR) PLANS
If your repayment plan is based on your income, you can kiss it goodbye, Burke says. These will be phased out and a new IDR plan will be written that states you must live below the poverty line. All attempts will be made to get rid of loan forgiveness, and if they are unsuccessful, payments will be paid for 25 years.
On a $50,000 loan with the current interest rate of 6.53% for undergrads, you'll end up paying nearly twice that when all is said and done.
OTHER STRUCTURAL REFORMS THAT THE DOE REQUIRES
Burke believes educational data collection needs to be reformed. She says that it's not race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, English language proficiency, disability, or sex that should be taken into account, but the family structure (i.e. are your parents married?).
Burke wants the to eliminate the negotiated rulemaking requirement, which allows for decisions within the DOE to be open for public comment prior to coming to a consensus. This is especially important for parties affected by the proposed regulations.
Again, Burke states that there should be reform in the Office of Student Aid, including axing student loan forgiveness and returning to private lenders at a much higher interest rate for borrowers.
NEW POLICY PRIORITIES FOR 2025 AND BEYOND
Burke wants no further taxpayer funds to enter the public schools, as "there is no conclusive evidence [that it] improves student outcomes." She says the union promotes "radical racial and gender ideologies...that parents oppose according to nationally representative surveys." She cites none of these surveys.
"Public schools power our communities, but their strength depends on us addressing the systemic inequities that our students and communities face." - Rocío Inclán, Senior Director, NEA Center for Social Justice
Burke also wants to "reinforce the Civil Rights Act of 1964 [prohibiting] compelled speech."
"Specifically, no teacher or student in Washington D.C., public schools, Bureau of Indian Education schools, or Department of Defense schools should be compelled to believe, profess, or adhere to any idea." - Project 2025
Here she references Critical Race Theory, a set of ideas holding that racial bias is inherent in many parts of western society. Let the record show there is no mention of the ongoing fight to reinstate the 10 Commandments in public schools.
Burke says that parental rights in schools are considered "second-tier," and includes the right to know if your child mentions changing their name or pronouns, which seems to be her most passionate argument. She references Abigail Shrier, a prominent conservative journalist and author of Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, who states that "the number of biological girls seeking gender surgery between 2016 and 2017" has increased "four-fold." However the numbers of gender-reassignment surgery in youth are so rare they are hard to capture.
"A new study by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found little to no utilization of gender-affirming surgeries by transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) minors in the U.S. The study also found that cisgender minors and adults had substantially higher utilization of analogous gender-affirming surgeries than their TGD counterparts." - Harvard School of Public Health
Burke refers to trans children as "confused" and that teachers are "prohibited from informing parents.
"No public education employee...shall use a name to address a student other than the name listed on a student's birth certificate, without the written permission of a student's parents or guardians. No public education employee...shall use a pronoun in addressing a student that is different from that student's biological sex." - Project 2025
Currently there is a scholarship for students at or below 185% of the federal poverty line to attend private schools of their choice. Burke wants to make this available to any student, regardless of income, again reducing opportunities for low-income students.
Burke wants a portion of the education spending per student to be for private spending, used on tutors, books, transportation, tuition, etc.
ADDITIONAL REFORMS
Burke wants to allow states to opt out of dozens of federal K-12 programs and provide their own state and local programs. The same should happen in higher education, she says, stating, "accreditors have forced colleges and universities, many of them faith-based institutions, to adopt diversity, equity, and inclusion policies."
The good old DEI argument sweeping the nation and concluding that women, people of color, and disabled people are examples of "fraud, waste, and abuse."
More discussion of ending student loan forgiveness, ending interest rate subsidies, and limiting borrowing.
NEW REGULATIONS
Burke suggests that in order to participate in federal financial aid programs a school must be accredited. However, the new Secretary of Education can refuse recognizing accreditors that "abuse their power," and encourage new accreditors to step into their shoes. "Abuse their power how?" you ask. Well, Chinese money, of course. It's apparently a problem. And though much of it comes through the tuition payments of Chinese students at several notable universities, it is still considered a big taboo. However, there seems to be no discussion of the top foreign backers of U.S. universities, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, and Egypt.
Burke thinks that the next Administration should allocate at least 40% of all higher-education funding to international business programs, with the "[goal] of serving American interests." She asks that Executive Orders 13891 and 13892 (both issued by Donald Trump in 2019, and revoked by Joe Biden) be reinstated. These orders don't allow for adaptation in a time like the COVID-19 lockdowns, making it more difficult to change safety regulations and send out new information as needed.
Burke concludes by listing out all the executive orders a new President should issue, including accounting of all federal programs that "spread" diversity, equity, and inclusion; Critical Race Theory, and gender ideology. She wants to consolidate departments and "trim nonessential employees." She wants to focus on family structure and see a report on the "negative influence of action civics on students' understanding of history and civics, and their disposition toward the U.S." She says there should be another executive order issued to pursue antitrust against college accreditors, "especially the American Bar Association.” She wants programs transferred out of the Department of Education, citing an "astounding increase" in costs, potentially saving $17 billion from kids’ pockets, including 29 K-12 programs. Ending student loan forgiveness would save taxpayers $370 billion, a "low estimate," she says. And finally, as programs are extinguished, so too would be the employees who run them, currently 4,400 individuals.
Project 2025
Ellie is an author, editor, and owner of Red Pencil Transcripts, and works with filmmakers, podcasts, and journalists all over the world. She lives with her family just outside of New York City, and is represented by Vicki Marsdon at High Spot Literary.
This is so important to read thoroughly. Thank you for going through this clearly and completely. I hope more people read this and understand the potential consequences for minorities and underprivileged kids.
Thank you for a well written summary of the changes outlined in the Project 2025. I hope these actions do not come to fruition. The consequences would be devastating.