Reese Bennett, rb313@uakron.edu
As you’re all probably aware, the Presidential election in November has been a hot topic. The Republican candidate; Former President Donald Trump, and the Democrat candidate; Vice President Kamala Harris have very opposing ideas that could heavily impact the nation. Whether true or false, it has been said that Donald Trump plans to dismantle the department of education. The question is how this could affect schools across the country. What does it control? What would schooling be like without it? Why are people for or against it? All these questions will be answered now.
The Department of Education is the third most-funded US department, behind the Department of Defense, as well as the Department of Health and Human Services. Of course, the Department’s goal is to foster education that can prepare people for the competitiveness of the outside world. It does this by developing the curriculums and requirements of different levels of schooling. The Department of Education also provides funding for loose areas and manages the tax money that goes toward anything to do with student education.
In terms of the Department’s goals, they want to both improve and fix the system, as well as branch out into as many opportunities as possible. Some of the biggest policies that come with this are anti-discrimination laws that apply to education, as well as creating many outside of school activities to strengthen learned skills. That being said, how different would schooling be without the Department of Education? It is immediately worth noting financial aid for schooling of all levels would need to be addressed. While there still would be much federal funding for education, much of that will have to be reorganized and maybe even redistributed. There would also be a substantial lack of data surrounding what schools need, including how much discrimination is occurring. While private institutions can enforce their own rules, it would be more difficult for publicly funded schools to have proper legislature. Without the department of education, bounce back programs following Covid-19 would be harder to come by as well.
Ultimately, the lack of the Department of Education would most likely result in, at least in Donald Trump’s eyes, state-decided legislatures on school policies, so more ambitious educational practices could gain more traction. This variety from state to state could be seen as a very good thing, where certain regional issues are given more focus, and new ideas could be used with less judgment. At the same time, without the federal law of the land there could be very left-leaning or right-leaning controversial decisions made for the individual state. If the Department were to suddenly phase out of existence right now, all processes listed above would still be hypothetically possible, but it would likely take more effort than it may be worth at the time being. However, the Department was originally created to give American students a fair chance against other countries, and it may be arguable that it has served that purpose. If you take a look at who you would vote for in this coming election, take into consideration how students like you may be impacted by future decisions like these.
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