What happens if Republicans really do kill the Education Department?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

While Donald Trump tapping the wildly unqualified Linda McMahon to head the Department of Education is currently the splashiest news about that particular agency, the real story is what will happen if McMahon successfully fulfills Trump’s campaign promise of shuttering the department.

While Trump voters may think the end of the department would usher in some golden era of prayer in public schools and vouchers galore, it would also wreck funding and oversight for millions of students.

Conservatives of all stripes have hated the Department of Education for decades, and getting rid of it has been a hobbyhorse for the GOP since Ronald Reagan. It’s a goal that fits neatly within the Republican fixation on states’ rights—the idea that the federal government shouldn’t be able to impose rules about education, and those decisions should instead be at the local level.

Setting aside that “states’ rights” is typically just cover for imposing racist and retrograde views on everyone, there’s the bigger issue, which is that the federal government doesn’t really set education policy.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/11/30/2288598/-What-happens-if-Republicans-really-do-kill-the-Education-Department

[lame54]

1. Wild teenagers will run the streets

[MineralMan]

2. It will just be another brick in the wall.

"You don't need no education..."

[bucolic_frolic]

3. "the federal government shouldn't be able to impose rules about education" BUT

Trump should have the right to re-educate federal civil servants so they all agree with Trump, and only Trump.

These Republicans are sick. This is Stalinesque.

[delisen]

4. Stealing special ed funding.

[Irish_Dem]

5. Destruction of the US public education system.

Tax payers fund private education which provides religious and political indoctrination.

[MichMan]

6. Well over 90% of school funding comes from state and local taxes and not the Federal government. n/t

[Raven]

8. Yes, but that other 10%will be a killer for state and local municipalities to pick up. n/t

[MichMan]

9. The Dept of Education wasn't founded until 1980

Prior to that the Federal spending on education was disbursed by the Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare. In 1980, it was split up into Education and HHS. I'm not sure how much of the total budget of the DOE actually gets disbursed to the states.

I believe that it is approx 7% of the schools budget that now comes from the Federal government.

[soandso]

10. Well, how was it handled before DoE was created?

It was Carter who created it and we all went to school before that.

[Raven]

11. I'm guessing that some of the programs that the Feds fund now didn't exist then.

[soandso]

13. I really don't know

Whatever the case, it had to have been handled at the state and local level and it obviously worked. I'll admit, I don't even know what the DoE does. I only know I pay property taxes to support schools.

[MichMan]

15. Or funds were still disbursed from other Federal agencies without having a separate cabinet level DOE n/t

[Initech]

7. I don't know, but MAGA is truly off their fucking rocker insane.

[mcar]

12. All those Trump voters with special needs kids

will start complaining that their local school districts cut funding for their kids' educations.

These folks, who also tend to support vouchers, have to rely on public schools to teach their kids and accommodate their autism, ADHD, and other issues because the private schools that are getting taxpayer funded vouchers aren't required to accept everyone.

[Yavin4]

14. It's not just the dept. They want to destroy the very concept of free public education.

They want vouchers for private school which will always fall short of covering the total cost of K-12 education. This would put education on par with our current healthcare system and turn us into a backwater, struggling nation unable to compete with China.

[Fyrefox]

16. A patchwork quilt America is coming...

If Republicans kill the Education Department and education is remanded to a state's rights issue under state control, we will have a patchwork quilt array of state regulations on education with little national standardization, and a high degree of variation on educational quality and content from state to state. I would imagine that both Republican federal and red state legislatures would find ways to "punish" certain practices such as the teaching of critical race theory, critical thinking, and even the teaching of evolution. Conversely, other practices would be rewarded and perhaps mandated on the state level, such as the teaching of creationism and "intelligent design." The new medieval era would be at hand...

[haele]

17. Residents in rural areas devolve into peasants, their kids trapped

Into an educational system that can't prepare them for anything other than the local manual labor jobs. Which they're going to start doing at younger ages - 15, 16, 17...
Libraries won't be a priority because who needs them for kids who aren't going to need to learn enough to go to college, anyway? They're going to need to learn how to work.

Private schools will be sponsored by Religious or Financial organizations. So anything kids learn in private schools will be focused on the sponsor's agenda, not on promoting learning a wide range of subjects that "speak" to the student and direct their future.

The kids that are motivated to leave will join the military or look to sports scholarships to get them out of the community.

Project 2025 appears to be looking at a return to a "Gilded Age" - similar to the late 19th Century.

But looking at the religious based social restrictions it also supports imposing, this country appears to heading closer to a rural Russian model, with a very few wealthy people sending their nepo-babies that actually want to learn science or humanities out of the Country for a good education, the parents with money for private school making due with corporate one-size fits all higher level education, and a basic read'n, writ'n, and 'rithmatic education for everyone else so they could at least function doing manual labor and maintaining a household breeding a future workforce.
Moneyed families don't care if the lower classes aren't educated. I actually wouldn't be surprised if they preferred it that way, so there's no pushback against their demands and actions.

Just my observation.

[Buckeyeblue]

18. Remember, under W the dept of ed gave us no child left behind

It was an utter fiasco. As many have pointed out 90% or move of funding comes from states. So I would rather not have the department than have a shitty one.

[RedWhiteBlueIsRacist]

19. If Christian Republicans want to end public education:

How would they like it if someone came along and put an end to Christianity? It really would not be all that difficult of a thing to do. People need to play hardball with these Republican religious freaks.

One more thing, If Donald John Trump is a Christian, then Christians are fools. He flocked to that religion because he is a racist, and that religion coddles racists and racism. Just ask Isaac.

[Meowmee]

20. It's going to be a big mess.

And many people are going to be even more clueless/ ignorant than they are now.

[Blue_Tires]

21. I'll probably be out of a job

And if I'm in a situation with nothing left to lose, I'll probably try to seek retribution...

Too many folks think politics is just a game, that there's no lasting harm to electing fascists, that tearing down the country just to "troll the libs" is fucking hilarious. But as we're all about to discover, the consequences are all too real.

[valleyrogue]

22. It is likely bullshit.

Just get a whiff of the all the lawsuits by parents of special education students and see how far this nuttery goes.

If "abolition" ever happens, it would be to reincorporate the Department of Education to Health and Human Services and bring back the old department name of Health, Education and Welfare.