Donald Trump’s victory last Tuesday prompted embattled Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters to prepare parents there for elimination of the U.S. Department of Education.
On Thursday, Nov. 7 — two days after the presidential election — Walters sent a memo addressed to “parents of Oklahoma” with the subject line, “Regarding the Elimination of U.S. Department of Education.”
Eliminating the Department of Education is a stated goal of Project 2025, the far-right playbook created by the Heritage Foundation. Religious conservatives for years have complained the national education leadership is too liberal.
Now Walters says education — as Trump has said about abortion — should be a matter of states’ rights.
In a news release, Walters said: “For decades, the U.S. Department of Education has unjustifiably expanded the federal government’s power over American education, and that overreach has squeezed local communities and parents out of control of their own schools. Thanks to President Trump, we are going to reverse that trend. By eliminating the federal bureaucracy, money can be efficiently directed to local schools and allow disenfranchised parents to have more direct say over education in their states and communities. Working with President Trump, I will do everything I can to limit the federal overreach into education and return parents their rightful authority over our schools.”
Walters already has made national headlines for his push to embed Christian theology and history in public schools, especially by mandating the placement of a certain version of the Christian Bible in every Oklahoma classroom and demanding teachers use the Bible in instruction. Those mandates currently are being challenged in court and being resisted by school boards across the state.
“The federal government has hijacked our education system.”
In his memo to parents, Walters says: “The federal government has hijacked our education system, using taxpayer dollars to impose harmful policies and control what is taught in our schools. This memo addresses five major areas where eliminating the U.S. Department of Education and moving to block grants would restore authority to states, allowing communities — not Washington bureaucrats — to decide what is best for their children.
Those five areas are “championing parents’ rights,” “ending social indoctrination in classrooms,” “protecting patriotism in classrooms,” “stopping illegal immigration’s impact on schools” and “blocking foreign influence in our schools.”
Echoing key Republican and conservative evangelical themes, he says federal funds have been used to “force radical agendas, like promoting boys in girls’ sports and pushing divisive gender and racial ideologies.” He also charges that “schools are pressured to teach books that undermine American values and ignore the truth about American history.”
Immigrant children in public schools are “stretching resources meant for American kids,” he says.
And in a new twist, Walters declares federal education policies allow “China and other adversaries to infiltrate our education system.”
Walters declares federal education policies allow “China and other adversaries to infiltrate our education system.”
His memo assumes the Department of Education will be dismantled and says he wants to help parents “prepare for important and impactful changes to public education policy in the coming months.”
The truth is killing off the Department of Education isn’t as easy as Walters believes.
“Ending the agency would require approval from Congress and a great deal of political capital that Trump may want to target elsewhere, especially in the early days of his administration in which he will be under pressure to deliver promises around tax cuts and immigration. But it is possible,” according to an article in Education Week.
Trump attempted to dismantle the department in his first term but failed.
But with a more favorable Congress this time, he might be more likely to “scale back and consolidate some federal programs, even if he doesn’t fully end the agency,” the article says.
And this agenda against the department isn’t new.
“Republican presidents and presidential candidates have threatened to end the U.S. Department of Education since it was first established as a cabinet-level agency under former President Jimmy Carter in 1979,” Education Week explains. “Before then, all enforcement of federal education laws fell under the purview of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, which was renamed the Department of Health and Human Services when the law was enacted.”
Project 2025 also calls for radical changes to the Department of Health and Human Services, including recasting it as the Federal Department of Life.
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Today’s election also is a vote for or against Project 2025