When Trump Is Done, What Will Remain of Public Education?

Last week, the Trump administration threatened to withhold funding specifically from schools and school districts with high shares of low-income students if they did not verify in 10 days the elimination of certain diversity, equity and inclusion practices. Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the department, declared in a release announcing the memo, “Federal financial assistance is a privilege, not a right.”

This is not the first time that the Department of Education has outlined the Trump administration’s interpretation of civil rights law. States are already required to certify that they will comply with federal antidiscrimination laws — as New York officials noted when they refused to comply with the administration’s demands.

What makes the latest guidance from the department so pernicious is that it specifically targets Title I funding, which goes to schools that tend to have higher percentages of students of color.

The willingness of the administration to target schools serving low-income students for noncompliance with its interpretation of federal civil rights law illustrates its commitment to returning American education to a time before the Civil Rights Act, when the nation’s most vulnerable students were largely unprotected.

Since the inauguration, the Trump administration has laid off more than 1,300 employees at the Department of Education (hundreds more have taken buyouts) with the ultimate goal of eliminating the department altogether. Through its programs and enforcement actions over the last four and a half decades, the Department of Education has been the chief entity ensuring that in every state students who are racial minorities, those with disabilities, English language-learners and members of other marginalized communities, are not discriminated against and have access to the same quality education that has historically been provided to wealthy, white students.

The Department of Education was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter who, while governor of Georgia (as well as a county school board member), made it a priority to improve the state’s education system. Education guaranteed full citizenship, and when he declared in his inaugural address that “no poor, rural, weak or Black person” should be deprived of one — several conservative state senators walked out. In four years, Georgia made significant strides in early childhood education and integration.