Beginning January 20th, 2025, Donald J. Trump will take his second term as President of the United States. Throughout his year-long campaign, Trump focussed on several key policies about immigration, taxes and tariffs, abortion, and education. The latter of which he plans to make several changes to in the form of funding, the information taught in schools, and to the federal Department of Education.
According to PBS, Trump wants to restrict lessons on gender identity and institutional racism. He also plans to cut funding for schools promoting “Critical Race Theory”, gender ideology, and racial, sexual, or political content. Currently, 19 states in the US require an Ethnic Studies or close-culture class to be taken by highschool students, California amongst them. But Dr. Fey, the Ethnic Studies teacher at LACES, doesn’t think Trump will be able to take down the program.
“Donald Trump has determined that control of education would be going back to the states, and I think it might be difficult to undermine California’s state mandates,” said Dr Fey.
In other parts of the country, however, content regarding identity or race is subject to removal. In Louisiana, a new law passed requiring all public schools to display the Ten Commandments, according to the ACLU of Louisiana.
The Department of Education, as well as overseeing the state level education and implements education policies, provides funding for K-12 schools, specifcally those under the Title I program, which helps low income families, and the IDEA Program, which provides schools with money to assist in disabled care. Bringing down the Department of Education would push that funding from federal to state control.
Destroying the DOE is not a new challenge for Trump, it was proposed in 2016 during his first term, even though it was rejected by a Republican House and Senate. Four years later, it’s still unclear whether or not the Trump Administration will be able to dismantle the DOE as it would require a majority of 60 votes in the Senate. Along with funding and the Department of Education, the Trump Administration plans to expand on the already existing practice of restricting books from being read by the general public.
Across the country, states have banned certain books including The Hate U Give, To Kill A Mockingbird, Brave New World, The Absolute True Diary of A Part-Time Indian, and The Giver.
While California has a state law that prohibits public libraries from banning books on the basis of race, religion, sexual identity, or disability of the author, some books have escaped that law, such as To Kill a Mockingbird, which was taken of the LAUSD reading list last year.
“It’s kind of a weird thing about how we raise our next generation of Americans… The key is having access to diversity, to different view- points, and if we only have one viewpoint then I think bad things are going to happen,” said LACES English teacher Mr. Adam Tan.
Former and future President Trump’s policies will take time, and require more than just his support to put into action. He will need the votes of Republicans and Democrats in the Senate and the House of Representatives. His plans will take the course of his four years in office, and the only way to fully find out what he will do is to wait.
