In his second week as president, Donald Trump began wholeheartedly to act on his intentions with education policy—with efforts that could fundamentally change the federal government’s relationship with public schools.
Trump signed two executive orders this week that toe the line of the federal government’s authority over schools’ everyday operations—with one that directs several agencies to look into using taxpayer dollars to fund private school tuition, and another threatening to pull federal subsidies from schools that teach about race and gender in ways the administration considers to be “radical indoctrination.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Education’s office for civil rights has been openly telegraphing the kinds of cases it plans to investigate, aligning its enforcement of the nation’s antidiscrimination laws to the vision Trump has outlined in his first weeks, particularly when it comes to the rights of transgender students and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
Education policy experts are seeing signs from these early actions that the second Trump administration is aggressively using the Education Department to advance its agenda—at least until it moves to fulfill a campaign pledge and dismantle it.
“I think the White House will be much more engaged in shaping the Education Department’s agenda and work this time,” Jim Blew, who served in the agency during Trump’s first term, told Education Week earlier this week.
Here’s a look at what Trump did in his second week.
Trump issues two executive orders focused on the nation’s K-12 schools
In his first big foray into policymaking focused directly on schools, Trump followed up on promises he made repeatedly on the campaign trail.
Trump’s order on expanding private school choice directs a number of federal agencies to look into their ability to use funds they oversee to allow families to attend private schools—including religious schools—and charter schools. Under the order, agency heads have to report back in the coming months on the options they have for doing that and their plans for implementing those options for families starting next fall.
The Education Department has to develop guidance telling states how they can use federal formula funds they receive—such as Title I—to support private school choice, and prioritize school choice in the smaller, discretionary grants it oversees.
School choice was a big priority in the president’s first term; then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos pushed hard for federal support for it, but the administration ultimately came up short.
This term, there is more national momentum, with expansive private school choice programs taking effect in many Republican-controlled states, and a more favorable climate in Congress with Republicans closely aligned with the president and controlling both chambers.
However, short of new legislation, there are limits on the education secretary’s ability to push dollars toward such programs.
With his second order aimed at schools this week, Trump is using the threat of withholding federal funds to limit how schools talk about racism and gender, in a push that could influence curriculum—an area over which the federal government has no authority as the result of multiple laws.
The order seeks to end “radical indoctrination” and directs the secretaries of education, defense, and health and human services to work with the U.S. attorney general on an “ending indoctrination strategy” by examining funding streams and penning a plan that eliminates funds for schools that “directly or indirectly support or subsidize the instruction, advancement, or promotion of gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology.”
The order follows pledges Trump made on the campaign trail to end federal funding for schools teaching “critical race theory"—an academic theory that some conservatives have used to describe teaching on race and racism. The executive order cites a number of unfounded claims Trump has made in recent years alleging that schools are taking part in widespread ideological indoctrination of students and that they’re forcing students to question their gender identity.
- Read more about the school choice order. 🔎
- Read more about the ‘radical indoctrination’ order. 🔎
- Read more about the orders’ limitations. 🔎
A proposed—and then rescinded—federal funding freeze causes panic for school leaders
The nation’s school districts were sent into a tailspin this week after the Trump administration sought to indefinitely suspend hundreds of billions of dollars in federal grant funding, creating a frenzy as school officials and policy experts tried to understand what funding streams would be shut off.
The administration seemingly walked back the order less than 48 hours after it was announced, but it still reverberated through schools as a warning there could be more disruptions to federal funding in Trump’s second term.
The funding freeze—which could still take effect in the future, though a judge halted it and the administration rescinded the initial memo ordering it—is part of the administration’s effort to review spending and align it with the new president’s orders to eliminate federal diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and crack down on programs he says are promoting “gender ideology.”
What comes next remains to be seen: Administration officials reportedly hoped the freeze would trigger a constitutional fight in court over the law that prevents presidents from impounding federal funds appropriated by Congress.
Read more about the funding freeze. 🔎
The Education Department’s office for civil rights broadcasts its intentions by publicizing an early investigation
As Trump broadcasts his larger social policy agenda, the Education Department is carrying it out as it relates to schools and colleges.
In a rare announcement, the department publicized that it had opened a civil rights investigation into the Denver school district over the opening of a gender-neutral bathroom at a city high school. The investigation aligns with Trump’s order that defined sex as “male and female” and rolled back the Biden administration’s Title IX regulations that expanded the law’s protections to cover discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Typically, the department’s office for civil rights announces when it has completed an investigation into a claim, not when it opens a new probe.
The move forecasts that OCR will be one vehicle the administration uses to carry out its aims. The office enforces laws barring discrimination on the basis of sex, race, religion, and disability status. Education secretaries have the flexibility to tell OCR what cases to prioritize, and can issue guidance telling school districts how the office will interpret civil rights and discrimination laws.
The office dismissed book ban complaints in its first week, and scrapped a coordinator position tasked with working with districts facing book challenges.
Read this Education Week explainer on the office for civil rights. 🔎
Education Department scraps Biden’s litigated Title IX regulations, reverts to Trump’s from 2020
In a letter to school districts, universities, and others on Jan. 31, the Education Department said it would reinstate Trump’s Title IX regulations from his first term, dropping an effort from the Biden administration to expand the rules to offer more protections to LGBTQ+ students.
Former President Joe Biden’s Title IX regulations faced immediate opposition from Republicans, and were blocked in roughly half the states following lawsuits from Republican attorneys general. A federal judge in Kentucky ultimately struck them down earlier this month.
The regulation under the Biden administration intended to protect K-12 and university students from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It also would have expanded protections for pregnant and postpartum students, offered stronger language about retaliation, and set out new grievance and due-process procedures regarding sexual assault and other harassment claims.
Roughly 3 percent of high school students identify as transgender; 2 percent are questioning their gender identity, and those students face high rates of bullying and depression.
“Under the Trump administration, the Education Department will champion equal opportunity for all Americans, including women and girls, by protecting their right to safe and separate facilities and activities in schools, colleges, and universities,” Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said in a statement announcing the return to the 2020 rules.
See Education Week’s tracker of legal action against Biden’s Title IX regulation. 🔎
On the heels of the school choice executive order, Education Department strikes two Biden-era charter policies
The Education Department under Trump withdrew two notices from the Biden administration inviting applications for awards from two charter school grant programs, saying the criteria in those notices included “excessive regulatory burdens and promoted discriminatory practices.”
Charter schools were one area in which former President Joe Biden changed education policy. Under regulations his administration rolled out in 2022, a new charter school had to conduct a “needs analysis” and show there was a community need for it to qualify for federal startup funds. Schools also had to prove they weren’t managed by for-profit companies. School choice advocates opposed the regulations, calling them unnecessary hurdles.
The department said it would open new grant competitions to replace the withdrawn notices. And the agency on Friday also said it would release $33 million in grant funds for charter school management organizations that it said the Biden administration had stalled. Grant recipients will be “prohibited from spending any grant funds on DEI initiatives or race-based discriminatory practices,” according to the department.
Read Education Week’s 2022 story on the Biden administration’s new charter school grant program regulations. 🔎
