President Trump has issued an executive order aimed at dismantling the Department of Education. No, he does not have the authority to do this. A president needs congressional approval to fully end the department. However, as we’ve seen so far in the Trump administration, elected officials are either slow, unable, or unwilling to stop what appears to be a pursuit to dismantle our democracy. Here is a statement from Education Justice Alliance’s (EJA) Co-Executive Directors Jenice Ramirez-Garvin and Letha Muhammad: 

The current White House administration has taken another swipe at our communities with an executive order targeting the Department of Education. This is reckless. When Congress created the department in 1979, it declared the department would serve several purposes, with the first being, “to strengthen the Federal commitment to ensuring access to equal educational opportunity for every individual.” Now, with this attempt to shut it down, who will hold the education system accountable to students and families that are marginalized by the system? 

The expectation that the states will be able to handle accountability is simply unrealistic. In our own state, North Carolina lawmakers have proven they cannot be trusted to do what is needed for our students. The most glaring example of this is their refusal to honor the ruling regarding the Leandro Plan. The students and communities that would benefit most from that plan are the same communities that will be hurt by the dismantling of the Department of Education: students of color, students with disabilities, low-income students, and rural students. 

According to North Carolina’s Department of Public Instruction, the federal government provides over $1 billion to support public school students. This includes services for students with disabilities, children from low-income families and Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs. Federal dollars also fund more than 14,000 teacher and other educator positions, which is just under 8% of North Carolina’s education workforce. 

While there is a long list of lies about why this is happening, here’s the truth: This is one of several steps in the overall plan to take away our civil rights and civil liberties. The executive order falls right in line with the Project 2025 handbook, which is clearly guiding this administration and its supporters who make decisions in states across the country, including North Carolina. In the Project 2025 handbook, the section about the Department of Education begins with this, “Federal education policy should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated.” 

We should also mention, anyone celebrating this decision because they think it will change curriculum is very misguided. States and localities control curriculum, not the federal government. This also means closing the department will not improve school performance. If anything, school performance will drop because students will not have the protections and programs the department provided, such as investigating complaints about discrimination and providing grant funds to rural schools that serve concentrations of children from low-income families.

With each new decision by this White House administration, it becomes more and more clear that we must lean into our communities. Our collective efforts are what will hold us up in these challenging times.

Here’s what that looks like… 

• Get together with a group of friends, family, neighbors, etc and make a commitment to contact your Senators and Representatives DAILY! This can be a call, email, or social media message or comment. 
• Find out how you can serve your local public schools as a volunteer see for yourself the needs our schools have 
• Get connected with an organization that is working towards supporting our schools and ensuring all students receive the quality education they deserve