President Donald Trump announced at the beginning of February his intentions of eliminating the Department of Education through an executive action while pressuring employees to quit their jobs. A month later, on March 20, he signed the order that would start dismantling DOE and transfer authority over education and school curriculums back to each state.
The department oversees over 100,000 public and 34,000 private schools in the United States. It enforces Title IX guidelines in schools, provides federal grants for schools and programs so all children in America can have equal access to education, and oversees loans for college students.
Trump’s argument for the cut is based on his claim that the department has been infiltrated by “radicals, zealots and Marxists,” saying that schools should focus more on patriotic views rather than controversial lessons on race and gender.
Both the President and his party argue that said department is a waste of taxpayer money and that these investments could have a better use in different areas. Trump says that DOE demands too much government control and waste, and that the department has become a “one-stop shop for the woke education cartel.” The President believes in shifting its responsibilities to other agencies, such as the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that aims to control government “bloat.”
SUNY Cortland is known for its education program, ranked in the 30th position out of 654 schools for Best Education Bachelor’s Degree Schools.
Skyler Turpin, a student at SUNY Cortland majoring in Early Childhood Education with a concentration in Social Sciences, said she disagrees with Trump’s acts and his intentions of targeting DEI initiatives on a federal level.
“I value Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and believe students should have equal access to education,” said Turpin. “Teachers use resources to make learning accessible to their students. If schools receive less funding, students receive less of what they need to be successful.”
Chase Fusaro, also a student at SUNY Cortland majoring in Early Childhood Education, said that Trump’s posture towards the department is making a mockery of what the program stands for.
“The Department of Education has many flaws such as funding, teacher pay and pushing struggling kids into the next grade rather than giving them time to relearn concepts,” said Fusaro. “However, getting rid of it as a whole also removes the National standards that schools follow when educating students. This leads to students in different counties receiving vastly different educations and, depending on the funding given, could be detrimental to the children’s development.”
With his career as a teacher ahead of him, Fusaro reflected on how his future will look with the new order in effect.
“As someone in New York State, I believe that this will not affect me as much as because New York has very high standards for education, but other states may suffer greatly due to the difference in the spending in educational programs depending on the state,” said Fusaro.
Turpin, however, reflected how this new order could’ve been planned differently.
“As a teacher candidate, I wonder how this could impact students who benefit from funding through the department, and if Trump couldn’t work with the secretary to propose ideas for educational reform instead of swiping the whole department,” said Turpin.
The faculty and current professors in the Department of Education at SUNY Cortland were contacted for an interview regarding the matter. None responded or were willing to share their views on the topic.