Amid the flurry of executive orders coming from the Trump White House, two issued Jan. 29 related to education, and both drew immediate fire from educators and church-state separationists.
The first order, “Expanding Educational Freedom and Opportunity for Families,” promotes using federal funds for school vouchers nationwide. This “school choice” agenda would allow private sectarian schools to receive federal funding.
The second order, “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” follows the wish list of conservative evangelicals who have claimed public schools are “woke” and promote a “leftist agenda” to children.
While both orders appeal strongly to Trump’s base, both orders also play into the fears Trump’s critics have expressed throughout his campaign.
The first executive order calls on various parts of the government to find the funding and the mechanisms “to support K-12 educational choice initiatives” in a variety of ways.
While conservatives long have sought ways to funnel taxpayer funds to private schools, these efforts largely have been blocked in courts on separation of church and state grounds. However, a more conservative U.S. Supreme Court has opened the door to such practices more than ever before. Also this week, the high court agreed to hear a case out of Oklahoma, where state officials want to give taxpayer funding to a private sectarian charter school — which would be a first in the nation.
BJC Executive Director Amanda Tyler was among those decrying the Trump executive order on school choice.
Amanda Tyler
“BJC adamantly opposes this executive order, which purports to divert taxpayer funds away from public schools and other federally funded programs to private schools, including to private religious schools,” she said. “Students across the country rely on public schools as the only education system where their freedom of religion and other civil rights are guaranteed.
“Public funds should be for public uses. The government should not compel taxpayers to furnish funds in support of religion, regardless of whether they adhere to that religion or not.
“As people of faith, we celebrate our country’s freedom of religion and oppose attempts to entangle government in religious matters in this way. Religious education is best left to houses of worship and other religious institutions that are funded with the voluntary contributions of adherents of those faiths, free from federal funding and the accompanying strings.”
Tyler called Trump’s order a “grab for power that puts specific private interests over public interest and violates our constitutional order.”
“Students across the country rely on public schools as the only education system where their freedom of religion and other civil rights are guaranteed.”
The second executive order, which clocks in at a rambling 2,300 words, evokes the language of fighting “woke” ideology. It references “patriotic admiration for our incredible nation and the values for which we stand” and warns against “anti-American, subversive, harmful and false ideologies” being foisted upon children in public schools.
The order appears to tie federal funding to public schools nationwide on rooting out such things as gender identity, racial history and discussing of “white privilege.” The order echoes Trump’s earlier unfounded claims that public schools are “steering students toward surgical and chemical mutilation without parental consent or involvement.”
As federal education funds are allocated by Congress, not the president, it is unclear how Trump believes he has the power to withhold funding to schools that do not meet his criteria.
While a major theme of the executive order is fighting transgender identity and discussion of the same, it also calls for “additional patriotic education measures” in all public schools.
Rachel Laser
Americans United for Separation of Church and State said Trump wants to turn public schools into “re-education camps,” a reference to the Communist revolution in China where those who refused to follow a dictator were sent to “re-education” camps.
“Our public schools are the cornerstone of our communities and our democracy. These students are the future leaders of our country, and we must teach them the truth about America’s past, both good and bad,” said AU’s Rachel Laser.
“Trump’s executive order is an attack on our public schools and seeks to turn them into re-education camps for white Christian nationalist disinformation. The order, including the attempt to reestablish the ineffective 1776 Commission, would advance narrow Christian nationalist beliefs about gender and a white-washed American history. We know from last time that this commission is bent on tearing down the separation of church and state instead of lifting it up as an American original, a founding principle of this nation.”
Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen
A transgender advocacy group also blasted the Trump order as bullying.
“President Trump is being the bully-in-chief. This administration wants to outlaw kindness and common decency in schools and make it illegal for teachers to call their students by the name they want to be called,” said Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, executive director of Advocates for Trans Equality. “They are willing to do and say anything to undermine the basic tenets of democracy, including trying to paint anyone who believes in equity or wants safety and respect for students as anti-American.
“The scapegoating of trans students and developmentally appropriate curricula is from an old playbook. Trump and his Project 2025 cronies want to erode public good and divest from public education, and they have opted for the most spineless approach by attacking trans young people. This executive order does not change the law, but it sends a harmful message to trans young people and could make school harder for students who are already struggling to get through each day.”
Both executive orders on education are likely to face court challenges.
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