On Thursday, March 20, in front of a group of schoolgirls and school children in the White House, Donald Trump A signed a decree (Executive order) to reduce the Ministry of Education in the United States.
If the full abolition of the ministry requires a vote on the congress, the decree still marks a certain weakening of the federal authority and symbolizes the attack listed by Trump and its government.
The attacks by the Trump government and the Republican Party against public education and university education have only increased since their first mandate. The abolition of the Ministry of Education, the censorship of school programs and books that are accessible to schoolchildren, the promotion of religious private education, which were subsidized by public taxes, and the oppression of universities are all strategies in the context of war against education, research and in a broader sense of speeches against ultra-conservative and nationalist Christian reports that are deepened by the current state.
Cut the state
Since Trump has come in January 2025, the Ministry of Government Effectiveness (Department of State Efficiency, Doge) led by Elon Musk A. Decimated the ranks of the US federal administration of the United States.
More than 100,000 employees of the state have already lost their work. The most drastic layoffs have stored the ministries for housing and urban development as well as those of education and are the subject of Justice battles At the end of an unsafe. The government has also announced to suppress Billions of dollars of health financing in the health sector.
Taking the state therefore has several consequences for education, even if it should be remembered that education in the United States is mainly due to states and school districts. Only about 10 % of the Costs of public education In the United States, the state comes from local sources (i.e. from the property tax of the school districts) and the states.
The role of the state in education is traditionally rather low, with two exceptions: the financing of the program «Title I»created in 1965, the additional federal funds for the poorest and that provides for Idea, founded in 1975through which the state finance special programs for children with disabilities. With the full or partial destruction of the ministry, these two population groups, in particular vulnerable, will probably lose all chances of pursuing a school curricula adapted to their specific needs.
Trump and the Republican Party, which is due to the judgment that is reminiscent of the judgment that reminded the Federal Law in 2022 in 2022.
Program programs for censorship
The Republican Party promotes the Distance from schools and book libraries that deal with questions of ethno-racial, gender and sexuality And the censorship of the content of school programs, which, for example, cause the former slavery and segregationist of the United States as well as the inequalities that exist in the American society.
Through the interventions in the processes through which local school districts and universities make decisions about the content and the type of teaching, conservative activists want to impose negative stories to the young people, as well as a vision of the United States population, white, Christ, who deny the existence of people who do not meet this fantasy standard.
This censorship strategy is mainly placed locally and that of the states, even if the state symbolically marked its compliance with the Ultra conservative movement by using books within the only schools that manage it directly Military academies.
For the country’s other public schools, only the legislation of the states and local school district councils have the authority to make decisions about the books available in schools. From 2021, Groups of mothers of Ultra operational students such as Moms 4 Liberty Connected this local scale to drive her vision ahead in the presidential elections despite Trump’s defeat.
Abolish the separation between the church and the state at school
The ideological project of the Republicans is that of A Ultra -conservative Christian nationalism ; The government supports religious schools as such. During his first mandate, Trump clearly showed his support for the privatization of education and public financing programs from private schools when he had appointed Betsy Devos At the head of the Ministry of Education.
The judicial department, which was dominated by the judges appointed by Trump during his first mandate, plays a key role in the progress of this religious project. In the spring of 2025, the Supreme Court of the United States will be expressed as part of A in the question of religion expected with excitementBy determining whether the creation of an online school in Oklahoma, whose management is delegated to a Catholic archdiocese, represents a violation of the constitution. If the Supreme Court explains that the school in question is compatible with the constitution, it will be legal to finance public religious schools through taxes.
In 2021, the Supreme Court had already gained the separation between the church and the state by declaring the judgment Kennedy against Bremerton School district that the football coach of a public school was able to pray publicly during his team’s games.
Accept and punish universities
US universities who have been diabolized by conservatives as bastions of “left ideology” for decades and identified as a threat to conservative hegemony have been victims of unexploding attacks for years of witch hunt for years Maccarthysme.
The mechanisms are different this time, and Trump mainly used the financial lever to punish the universities Sports policy about transgender peoplefor propalestinic demonstrations from 2024 and in a broader sense for the topics of researching these institutions.
At the end of March 2025, the University of Columbia achieved a big turning point in Results in extreme inquiries from the Trump government This threatens to remove federal research programs up to $ 400 million. By giving up the autonomy of the Middle East ‘study departments, the African -American and Asian study departments. She is committed to tightening the repression of student demonstrations and forbidding the harbor of the mask on campus, shows that American universities that American universities are indisputable.
Attache education: an extreme right strategy
Trump had explained during his 2016 campaign “Venue to poorly trained people”Since he sees them in them a comprehensive electorate and is receptive to his wrong speeches, deceptions and ani -factual.
The Trump government plays on several standards, from school districts to the state, including universities, and today leads a muscular offensive against freedom of expression, which, however, is used as a flagship value of the Republican Party. The strategies for attack formation – if it is not privately, religious and the white Christian nationalist vision of the government party does not promote – testify to suppress critical thinking.
This threat to American democracy, undermined by the concentration of the power of the Trump government, is Symptomatic for far just diets. By emptying the system of public education and attacking the universities directly, the Republicans hope to shape the thoughts and words of American citizens, their future voters, and thus create a new generation without skills that are necessary to actively participate in democracy and to fend off the totalitarian oppression.
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