While the American education system is far from perfect, its most valuable aspects are sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education. Some of these programs provide support for children with disabilities. These children would otherwise have difficulties receiving the help they need. Other programs provide free and subsidized school lunches for low-income communities. Additionally, having the DOE promotes national unity and a common culture rooted in similar beliefs.
One of the biggest concerns with President Donald Trump’s plan to dismantle the DOE is the fact that curriculums will be controlled by individual states. State-controlled curriculums are problematic because the political biases of the individual states heavily influence how and which topics are taught, especially concerning history.
Trump has not been quiet about his beliefs that the history currently being taught in schools regarding the U.S.’s racist past consists of “lies” and “left-wing indoctrination.” These words coming from Trump are enough to significantly divide the country between those who agree with his stance and those who support comprehensive history being taught in schools.
This divide will be exacerbated if each state can influence school curriculums with their biased beliefs about historical events. The already heavily polarized country will have more disagreements about the nature of historical events, which are supposed to be factual and unrelated to the beliefs of lawmakers. If given enough time to fester, this polarization will lead to a dangerous lack of understanding between different demographics of the population. This divide can be used by rich and powerful individuals to take advantage of the country for their own gain.
A common counterargument to parents who dislike school curriculums or potential changes to them is that they should homeschool their children or send them to a private school with a curriculum they agree with. In a perfect world, this is a good solution; however, most families with children in the public school system have their children in public school due to the unaffordability of private schools and homeschooling. Private schools are very expensive while homeschooling requires one parent not working in order to provide their child with an education, both of these options are inaccessible for low-income families.
Given these facts, it is clear that changes to the public school system will disproportionately affect families with limited options. This is why the DOE has taken deliberate steps to bridge the opportunity gap by providing free and subsidized lunches for students in need, protecting against discrimination in public schools and providing additional funding to schools with high concentrations of low-income families. These measures, and others like additional aid for students with disabilities, are part of Title I funding provided by the DOE.
If Trump is allowed to get what he wants, it will not be the families with financial security and the ability to choose how they want to educate their children that will be affected. Instead, it will be the students with no other options that suffer the consequences.
