​How will Project 2025 plans for Education impact pre-K-12 Public Education? 

Public education is the foundation of a strong democracy.  Therefore, Project 2025 spells out its explicit plans to completely dismantle public education as we know it.  From eliminating the Department of Education (and therefore any federal education guidelines and regulations) to blatantly defunding public schools by expanding and increasing universal "no strings attached" vouchers to completely stripping away any rights or protections for marginalized students, their plan is a disaster for public education. 

 

Project 2025's Education Goals: 

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1. Eliminating the Department of Education: "Federal education policy should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated." (Project 2025, Section 3, Page 319) They wish to instead turn all education policies and funding back to the states with little to no oversight or limitations.  While completely eliminating the DoE would require an act of congress, "... several of Trump and his allies’ policy goals on education could be accomplished through presidential actions." (The Guardian) And if they are unable to completely eliminate it outright, they plan to dismantle it piece by piece.
    

2. Eliminate the DoE's Office of Civil Rights (OCR) and Roll Back Title IX. OCR’s mission is to ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence through vigorous enforcement of civil rights in our nation’s schools.Title IX prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receives funding from the federal government. Project 2025 seeks to limit both. (Project 2025, Section 3, Pages 331 - 334) If they are unable to completely eliminate them, they would severely limit the DOE's ability to enforce civil rights laws. 
    

3. "Eliminate the Head Start program." (Project 2025, page 8) Head Start federal program that provides comprehensive early childhood education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children and families. Since its creation, Head Start has helped over 39 million children and their families. The consequences of eliminating Head Start cannot be overstated.  
    

4. Universal, No Strings Attached School Vouchers:  "universal school choice—a goal all conservatives and conservative Presidents must pursue." (P 2025, page 5)  Not only do they wish to expand current voucher programs but greatly increase the maximum dollar amount of vouchers and remove any barriers (such as income restrictions). (page 347)  An Education Week Article states, "Distributing special education funds under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to school districts as “no-strings-attached” block grants or directly into education savings accounts for parents to use on private school and other educational expenses."
    

5. Phase Out Title 1:  A proposal to phase out Title 1 Funding and instead send no-strings-attached block grants to States that State Departments of Education would administer. Eventually, the block grants will be phased out, leaving the States on the hook. Jon Valant, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, was quoted in a The Hill Article stating, "The plan “looks to me like the very dismantling of Title I,” Valant said, adding he does not believe states would use money for Title I if it was not specifically allocated for that purpose.
    

6. Federal "Parental Bill Rights":  We have seen what these "parental rights" bills are really about as they have already been passed in 8 states.  These bills undermine public education and teachers while allowing Christian nationalist extremists to impose their views on others.  These law often go by other names such as "don't say say" and focus more on restricting the rights of teachers, stifling speech, suppressing LGBTQ and BIPOC voices while also making it easier for parents to sue schools.  To learn more check out this article or this article.
    

7. Attacks or eliminate DEI Programs: The attacks on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs are extensive; according to The Guardian, "The project also wants what remains of the Department of Education to gather data and report on programs or grants that spread “DEI/CRT/gender ideology”, how “family structure” affects student achievement, how pandemic aid funds were spent and how much money goes directly into the classroom from federal grant programs. In addition, ACLU has this to say, "Trump has also promised to eliminate school administrator positions that oversee DEI initiatives and to resuscitate the discredited 1776 Commission, which was a presidential advisory committee created in September 2020 by then-President Trump that was tasked with “restoring patriotic education in schools.”
    

8. School Privatization: Expand Education Savings Accounts for students attending schools on tribal lands, active-duty military families and students studying in D.C.  Bill Track 50 Project 2025: The Expansion of Education Savings Accounts​​​

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