One of the most controversial goals stated in President-elect Donald Trump’s Project 2025 policy agenda is the elimination of the U.S. Department of Education.
Trump has stated that his administration would be focused on “closing up” the Department of Education “very early” in his second term, removing federal oversight and leaving the individual states responsible for regulating education. “We want [the states] to run the education of our children, because they’ll do a much better job of it,” Trump said. The president-elect and his allies have claimed that the department is responsible for declining education performance, calling department officials “people that in many cases, hate our children.”
Trump’s former Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, called for abolishing the very department she once led while speaking at a Moms for Liberty summit earlier in the Summer. DeVos has expressed interest in returning to serve in Trump’s second administration.
Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, owner of the social media company X, and a major benefactor and surrogate for Trump’s 2024 campaign also recently posted a meme in support of the policy. “In 1979 I created the Department of Education, since then America went from 1st to 24th in education” reads the meme’s text, laid over an image of former-President Jimmy Carter. “Not exactly great value for money!” Musk added. After Trump won the 2024 election, Musk’s net worth soared by $70 billion.
U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-AL, replied to Musk’s post on X in emphatic agreement with Trump’s position, simply stating, “SHUT IT DOWN! #MAGA”. Tuberville has long been a staunch Trump ally, even supporting his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
In addition to shutting down the Department of Education, Project 2025 calls for the elimination of the Title I and Head Start programs. According to the National Education Association, eliminating Title I would result in the loss of 180,300 teaching positions, negatively impacting 2.8 million students in high-poverty school districts. Additionally, Trump’s plan would cause over 800,000 preschoolers, toddlers, and infants to lose access to early learning services through Head Start. That policy would also prevent millions of children from accessing universal free school meals that provide a necessary source of food security.
With the elimination of the Department of Education, education would grow increasingly privatized, limiting access to quality education for disadvantaged Americans. The GOP in Alabama has already been working to shift funding away from public education through private school voucher programs like the CHOOSE Act. Such programs benefit families whose children are already in private schools, subsidizing their education to the detriment of the vast majority of students who attend public schools. In states like Alabama that have troubled histories of segregated education, these policies also work to exacerbate inequalities between black students and their white counterparts.
