Just liked what he promised during his campaign trail, U.S. President Donald Trump signed two executive orders on school funding last 29 January that seek to enhance school choices and end funding for schools that support what the White House calls "radical indoctrination."
In the week and a half since he’s been in office, President Trump has signed a flurry of executive actions as he’s sought to remake the federal government and enact his sweeping "America First" agenda, with a particular target on so-called diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.
The order on school choice — an issue that President Trump has been pushing for eight years — could be a huge win for conservative activists and politicians who have been advocating for decades to make it easier for families to spend taxpayer funds on private education.
The order involves multiple agencies in the effort to provide taxpayer funds to parents to pay for private schools.
Among its directives, the Department of Education – which President Trump has vowed to shut down – is ordered to issue guidance on using federal funding to support scholarship programs for grade school students. The Department of Defense is ordered to submit a plan to President Trump directly on how military families can use DOD funds to send children to their preferred school.
The secretary of interior is ordered to submit a plan to Trump on how families with students attending Bureau of Indian Education schools can use federal money to attend the school of their choice. And the Health and Human Services Department must issue guidance on how states can use HHS funds to attend private or faith-based schools.
Various conservative states across the country have already passed universal or near-universal school choice policies on the state level — either vouchers that directly send public dollars to private schools or "education savings account" programs that give parents more flexibility on where to spend the money. The present administration’s move to allow federal tax dollars to be directed to school choice could supercharge the movement.
But public school advocates and public school teachers’ unions have long been against redirecting taxpayer dollars from public schools to private schools, saying it would harm poorer public schools. Districts have already been dealing with budget shortfalls, in addition to a dramatic reduction in the public school population, which is often a factor in determining how much funding a school district will receive. Public school advocates believe eventually school choice will mean the end of public schools and an increase in education inequity.
One source within a teachers’ union expressed some skepticism on the overall impact this order would have, pointing to how unpopular school choice has been with some voters who have rejected these policies on a state level.
The additional school-related executive order is about protecting parental rights and ending discrimination.
"My Administration will enforce the law to ensure that recipients of Federal funds providing K-12 education comply with all applicable laws prohibiting discrimination in various contexts and protecting parental rights," the order reads.
It calls for government agencies to come up with a plan to end funding "for illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology."
Trump is also calling on the federal government to cancel student visas for what he called "Hamas sympathizers" on college campuses, according to a White House fact sheet.
He later signed an executive order calling on government agencies to submit a report within 60 days to identify civil and criminal authorities to combat antisemitism and "containing an inventory and analysis of all pending administrative complaints, as of the date of the report, against or involving institutions of higher education alleging civil-rights violations related to or arising from post-October 7, 2023, campus anti-Semitism."
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