The Future of the Department of Education
Elon Musk—a businessman apparently being allowed by President Trump to tread upon whatever and whomever he pleases in his capacity as head budget-slasher-of-questionable-Constitutionality of the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (not actually a U.S. government department)—has recently set his sights on the Department of Education.
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The New York Times reports:
The Musk team’s engagement came as the White House has been discussing the possibility of issuing an executive order to effectively shut down the Education Department, according to people familiar with the conversations. In a post Tuesday on X, Mr. Musk boasted that President Trump would “succeed” in effectively dismantling the department.
CNN reports:
The move would come in two parts, the sources said. The order would direct the secretary of Education to create a plan to diminish the department through executive action. Trump would also push for Congress to pass legislation to end the department, as those working on the order acknowledge that shuttering the department would require Congress’ involvement.
Whether the effort would succeed is uncertain, as CNN notes:
During Trump’s first term as president, his administration proposed merging the Education and Labor Departments into one federal agency. Even though Republicans controlled both the Senate and House of Representatives at the time, the proposal did not go anywhere.
Still, the Department is already experiencing (temporary, for now) reductions, as “dozens of employees at the Education Department were placed on paid administrative leave Friday.”
(If you’re curious what the Department of Education is responsible for, this gives a brief description, and this is the Department’s own overview.)
Sharing of information and developments related to the Trump and Musk’s efforts to close the Department of Education and discussion of relevant issues welcome.
I could not be more opposed to Musk’s worldview and to the fact that he seems to wield so much power. And even though I loathe the way this administration is going about things — really, what good do all these firings achieve? — I’m sympathetic to the idea of federal department reform, including the Department of Education. (And I’m open to arguments to the contrary, but I’m not sure education should fall under the federal government’s purview.)
From the Ed Dep’s mission statement:
Except for ensuring equal access, none of this seems all that good, let alone necessary.
“The growth of the Federal role in education” has meant uniform, blunt, and simplistic metrics, handed down by diktat, the meeting of which is tied to funding. Not only does this result in “education”-by-teaching-to-the-test. Sometimes it results in the federal regulation of “sexual conduct that is
voluntary, non-harassing, nonviolent, and does not harm others.”
“Preparation for global competitiveness” has meant the elevation of symbol-trafficking professions based in cosmopolitan urban centers.
And so “educational excellence” has meant the devaluing of trades, of manual labor, and of the ethic of maintenance and repair and meant the concomitant cultural disparagement of those who perform these necessary jobs.
Thus even “equal access” has come to mean something more like “required paths to knowledge work.”
The Ed Dep has a noble goal in disbursing financial aid, and maybe that’s about all it should do — just more streamlined and without making it conditional on definitions and metrics that are insulated from local, democratic contestation.
One can have a discussion about these issues, but in the given context, I don’t see what good they’d do. What matters in this piece of news is who would carry out the changes and how. It also matters of course what they’d do, but to me, the who and why of it decides the matter.
I admit to helping myself to a wide interpretation of Justin’s invitation for “discussion of relevant issues” — wide enough to include comments about and discussion of big-picture things like whether and to what extent the Ed Dep is a good thing, whether and to what extent it’s been a good thing, or whether and to what extent it’s a moral emergency that it’s being threatened in this way.
But I do take your point. Maybe I zoomed out too much!
I am also not a fan of NCLB and its relevant reforms (high stakes testing, value-added assessments, a narrow focus on reading and math to the detriment of other subjects such as art, music, history and science, etc.) but I think disbursing financial aid is more than a noble goal — it widely distributes FSA funds to college students and also gives billions of dollars to support title I schools and special education programs. I am not sure that the federal government is responsible for devaluing manual labor, but I do think that everyone should be afforded an opportunity to receive/claim a rich, well-rounded education. One can do manual work and still read widely.
I agree whole-heartedly. And I shouldn’t have to say this, but: that was not at all what I was critiquing. I was critiquing its slow but noticeable deformation into a de facto requirement to enter into knowledge work.
As to whether to “the federal government is responsible for devaluing labor,” I guess it depends on what you take responsibility to require; maybe “being responsible for” is not the right concept to apply here.
But, just to pick a particularly egregious illustration, let’s not forget Biden’s Ed Sec saying that education “should align with industry demands and evolve to meet the demands of tomorrow’s global workforce.” The symbol and leader of American education publicly declared that the criteria for determining whether one has been educated are just the criteria governing the market and the whims of its actors, and implied that the student should emerge from education as a compliant worker trained to yield market value. Of course, all this will get dressed up in language of “adaptability,” “creativity,” “innovation,” “critical thinking,” “tomorrow’s thought leaders,” and so on. But with the fed under the sway of a destructive political economy, I wouldn’t mind a little more subsidiarity.
I agree with you, but this is not only a US Department of Education problem, its mainly a US culture problem. You can read nearly identical language from speeches and letters of governors across the country. Case in point, in former Michigan governor Snyder’s address to the MI legislature, he writes “One of Michigan’s most pressing responsibilities is ensuring that students are prepared to enter the work force and to take advantage of new opportunities as our economy grows…Our education system must position our children to compete globally in a knowledge-based economy. To prepare and train the next generation of workers, Michigan needs a capable, nimble and innovative work force that can adapt to the needs of the emerging knowledge-based economy and compete with any nation…To accomplish that, Michigan’s education system must be reshaped so that all students learn at high levels and are fully prepared to enter the work force or attend college.”
In this vision of MI education, there is no mention of any kind of intrinsic value of education, nor the variety of ways in which teachers help students and society flourish, nor even how education might promote thoughtful, engaged citizens. Art, music, history, literature are only useful if they lead one to a job.
Of course, there is nothing new about this either. In 1937, Robert Maynard Hutchins, the president of the University of Chicago, responded to the question “What is wrong with our schools?” by saying “absolutely nothing.” Schools merely reflect the ideals of society and “what is principally honored in this country is external goods” and the “freedom to pursue them.”
I didn’t think I needed to explicitly deny that I was claiming the Ed Dep was the only causally relevant factor. But I’m happy for the misunderstanding in this case, because this is good stuff. Thanks!
Sorry, I wasn’t trying to imply that we disagree on the main points, only to say that the federal government’s narrow view of public education — as instrumentally keyed to economic success — is deeply rooted in our culture. At times, we have added other rationales for public education, such as the “Americanization” of immigrants during the turn of the last century or beating the Russians in science innovation during the Cold War, but these too are narrow instrumental aims that fail to recognize the intrinsic values and advantages of education. At the very least, the DoE provides funds to schools that find their way to teachers who still try to provide students with a rich and rewarding education despite their own institution’s misguided priorities.
Nice. Yes.
I would only add — as I said all the way up in my original comment — that providing funds to schools is probably the only thing the department should do.
And if that’s the only function it rightly performs, then it’s not unreasonable to ask whether that function might be absorbed into another federal organ.
Department of Ed disburses student loans, disburses grants related to access for low-income students, and much more (to mention nothing of the funding it disburses for K-12 schooling).
Talk to your colleagues, department chairs, and deans. Ask chairs and deans what the university plans to do to push back on this illegal and harmful proposed action. Universities need to collectively flex muscle.
My spouse has a full-time job at the small religiously-affiliated college where I teach. That job is funded entirely by a grant from the US Department of Education, as are most of the functions of her unit. If the funding dries up, it’s not clear that her job will survive, or even the program. They have to reapply for the federal grant every five years, using data from the last period to show that they’re meeting their goals. My spouse works mostly with first-generation students, those from lower socio-economic-status backgrounds, and those with diagnosed learning disabilities. She helps with study strategies, scheduling courses, adjusting to higher education and being away from home, and sometimes even tutoring their writing. She runs a sub-program that loans expensive academic books to students who can’t afford to buy them. During the COVID pandemic, they lent laptop computers to students who otherwise had to perform all the tasks of distance education, including writing essays, on a cell phone. Those of us from privileged backgrounds have little idea of the simple information gaps that can torpedo academic progress for students who know nobody who’s a college graduate — e.g. that office hours are time for student questions and feedback, not for the instructor to get paperwork done, or that a deadline might be extended for an illness or family crisis.
Though not related to the Dept. of Education, it’s worth mentioning that Trump’s and Musk’s ongoing destruction of USAID is, among other things, condemning millions of people, especially women and children, in the global South to preventable illness and death, as well as upending programs that have helped save millions of lives and contributed to the considerable reduction in child mortality in recent decades.
https://healthpolicy-watch.news/trump-and-musks-message-to-usaid-time-to-die/