Since former President Donald Trump gained the November election, educators’ issues have centered on his politically difficult pledges to lower federal training funding and dismantle the U.S. Division of Training, and what stamp former World Wrestling Leisure CEO Linda McMahon, whom he plans to appoint to guide the U.S. Division of Training, would possibly placed on the company.
However Trump’s imaginative and prescient for disruptive change crosses all Cupboard businesses, with probably broad implications for Ok-12 faculties.
That’s as a result of many businesses past the Training Division have a toehold in what faculties do and the insurance policies that have an effect on their college students.
Trump’s Cupboard picks might have an effect on every little thing from the meals that’s served at school cafeterias to what college security methods are prioritized in federal grant packages.
Right here’s a breakdown of how 9 key officers might affect training.
Click on on a cupboard company to leap to the related part:
Agriculture
Former Trump coverage aide Brooke Rollins, his decide to guide the U.S. Division of Agriculture, has not outlined public positions on one of many company’s key Ok-12 obligations: overseeing federal college meal packages.
Rollins, a lawyer, served because the appearing director of the Home Coverage Council on the finish of Trump’s first administration. She’s most lately served as president and CEO of the America First Coverage Institute, which was shaped in 2021 to advance Trump’s political agenda, and which has advocated for utilizing public funds to ship college students to personal faculties.
If confirmed, Rollins will oversee the Agriculture Division at a time when lots of Trump’s political allies, together with the authors of the conservative Undertaking 2025 agenda, an inventory of suggestions for each federal businesses spearheaded by the Heritage Basis, have pushed for proscribing or eliminating what’s often called the neighborhood eligibility program. (Trump sought to distance himself from Undertaking 2025 through the marketing campaign, however he has chosen a number of of its contributors for positions inside his administration.)
Group Eligibility, created beneath the Obama administration, permits faculties and districts to offer common free college meals if a minimum of 25 p.c of scholars mechanically qualify via participation in social safety-net packages, just like the Supplemental Vitamin Help Program, generally often called meals stamps.
Anti-hunger advocates have credited neighborhood eligibility with driving down charges of kid starvation and eliminating the stigma of consuming free college meals. However conservative members of Congress have stated it’s too expansive, offering a free profit to college students whose households might afford to pay out of pocket.
The subsequent agriculture secretary will even oversee implementation of new diet requirements for varsity meal packages. These guidelines, finalized by the Biden administration in April 2024, embrace a brand new, gradual restrict on added sugars and phased-in sodium restrictions.
The primary Trump administration criticized such heightened diet necessities. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s decide for Well being and Human Providers secretary, has known as for an finish to processed meals at school meals, however he would have restricted affect over this system if confirmed to that position.
Commerce
Howard Lutnick, Trump’s transition co-chair and his decide to guide the U.S. Division of Commerce, would oversee preparations for the 2030 census because the chief of the company.
The decennial inhabitants depend has important penalties for varsity districts. Census information are used to allot funding for greater than 300 federal packages, together with the Nationwide Faculty Lunch Program, Title I grants for high-poverty faculties, and Head Begin early-education packages. Districts additionally use inhabitants information to set attendance boundaries and to plan for projected shifts in enrollment.
In his first time period, Trump’s administration pushed unsuccessfully so as to add a query about citizenship standing to the Census and to change the inhabitants depend to exclude undocumented individuals. Opponents of that plan argued it might have a chilling impact on responses from households afraid of federal immigration enforcement and threaten the accuracy of the ultimate tally.
Whereas Lutnick—a billionaire investor and CEO of funding financial institution Cantor Fitzgerald—has not supplied a public place on the Census, Undertaking 2025 recommends that Trump ought to revive efforts so as to add the citizenship query.
Protection
Trump picked former Fox Information host Pete Hegseth to function secretary of protection, a job that features oversight of a community of colleges that educate kids on navy installations world wide.
The Division of Protection Training Exercise operates 160 faculties in 11 nations with a mixed enrollment of 66,000 college students.
Hegseth is a long-time proponent of purging faculties of what he sees as leftist ideology and selling instruction asserting Christianity’s position within the nation’s historical past and selling patriotism, Politico reported in December. Main the Protection Division would permit him to nominate a brand new director for the DODEA who might reshape issues like trainer coaching and curriculum.
Undertaking 2025 calls for an entire audit of the colleges’ insurance policies and curricula and laws to create training financial savings accounts, which might permit navy households to ship their kids to personal faculties.
The Pentagon can also be at the moment collaborating with a gaggle of state faculties chiefs to make it simpler for states to entry information on college students’ postsecondary enlistment. Together with such data in school and profession information might give states a clearer image of graduates’ profession paths.
Well being and Human Providers
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s decide to guide the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Providers, has an extended document of controversial positions on points related to Ok-12 faculties, together with opposition to states’ college vaccine necessities and COVID-19 mitigation efforts.
If confirmed, the environmental lawyer would lead an company that collects and stories information on pupil drug use, suicidal ideas, publicity to violence, and different points associated to little one well-being. In response to a mother and father’ rights motion that’s steadily skeptical of pupil information assortment, some states have withdrawn from that nationwide Youth Danger Habits Survey lately.
Kennedy’s vaccine criticism consists of parroting debunked claims concerning the security and efficacy of childhood vaccines. Main the nation’s public well being infrastructure would give him a brand new megaphone to share these concepts, even when he doesn’t take any concrete coverage actions.
The Well being and Human Providers Division consists of the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, which develops the immunization schedules that inform states’ college vaccination necessities. It additionally consists of the Meals and Drug Administration, which regulates the vaccines themselves.
HHS additionally oversees Head Begin, an early-childhood training program for low-income kids. Undertaking 2025 requires eliminating that program, calling it wasteful and ineffective, however Kennedy has not taken a public place on the matter.
The company additionally oversees the Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Providers, which has sought to make it simpler for faculties to hunt Medicaid reimbursements for particular training and psychological well being companies.
As a part of his “Make America Wholesome Once more” agenda, Kennedy has additionally known as for eradicating processed meals from college meals. That program is essentially the duty of the Agriculture Division, however Kennedy might affect it by rewriting a deliberate replace of the nationwide dietary pointers that assist form diet necessities for varsity meals.
Homeland Safety
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Trump’s decide to guide the Division of Homeland Safety, can be a key determine within the president-elect’s plans for a dramatic shift in immigration coverage with sturdy implications for faculties.
Noem, who as soon as despatched her state’s Nationwide Guard unit to Texas’ southern border, might assist decide how immigration officers work together with faculties, how mixed-status households are dealt with in deportation efforts, and public messaging concerning the administration’s plans. All of these selections would have penalties for undocumented college students, and will have an effect on college local weather and pupil engagement in communities with massive immigrant populations.
An estimated 5.5 million kids lived with an unauthorized immigrant dad or mum in 2019, representing about 7 p.c of the U.S. little one inhabitants, in line with the Migration Coverage Institute suppose tank. Of those kids, 4.7 million, or 86 p.c, have been U.S. residents; 726,000, or 13 p.c, have been themselves unauthorized.
Noem has stated she helps aggressive immigration enforcement.
Trump plans to rescind a longstanding coverage that has discouraged immigration brokers from finishing up enforcement actions in locations thought-about to be “protected areas”—faculties, hospitals, church buildings, and different locations the place kids collect, comparable to bus stops, after-school packages, and little one care amenities, NBC Information reported in December.
Trump’s aides have additionally pushed for a problem Plyler v. Doe, a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court docket resolution that made entry to a free, public training a constitutional proper no matter a pupil’s immigration standing.
Homeland Safety additionally consists of the Cyber and Infrastructure Safety Company, which coordinates a clearinghouse of faculty security methods and advises faculties on safety and preparation for pure disasters.
CISA additionally oversees federal efforts to assist college and district directors reply to the rising menace of cyber assaults.
Inside
Trump’s plans to nominate North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum as Secretary of the Inside have been met with reward from tribal leaders in his state, the Fast Metropolis Journal reported.
Along with overseeing public lands, the Inside Division operates the Bureau of Indian Training, which operates or helps 183 faculties on 64 reservations in 23 states, serving roughly 40,000 Native American college students.
The company has been criticized for poor educational efficiency, lax oversight of its faculties, and failure to adjust to the federal Each Scholar Succeeds Act. Undertaking 2025 suggests providing training financial savings accounts to households with kids in BIE faculties, which might they might use to ship their kids to personal faculties.
Present Inside Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna and the primary Native American individual to carry the place, launched an investigation into historic cases of abuse and neglect in federal Indian boarding faculties from the early 1800s via the Seventies. An investigation Haaland launched in July discovered that a minimum of 973 American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian kids died whereas attending federally operated or supported faculties.
Justice
Pam Bondi, the previous Florida legal professional common and Trump’s decide for U.S. legal professional common, has sided with the president-elect on a number of the most contentious points that have an effect on Ok-12 training, together with college security measures and opposition to protections for undocumented college students.
If confirmed to guide the Justice Division, she’s going to oversee packages associated to pupil civil rights, college security, and funding for varsity police.
The company’s workplace for civil rights usually works with the U.S. Division of Training to interpret and implement civil rights legal guidelines associated to incapacity rights, LGBTQ+ standing, race, ethnicity, and college students’ nationwide origins.
Trump’s first administration scrapped steerage issued beneath the Obama administration on stopping racial disparities at school self-discipline and on the rights of transgender college students to make use of restrooms and pronouns that align with their gender id. Conservatives criticized Biden’s positions on transgender college students and faculty sports activities, and reversing these insurance policies is more likely to be a precedence for Trump’s second administration.
As state legal professional common, Bondi joined a multi-state case difficult Deferred Motion for Childhood Arrivals, a coverage former President Barack Obama created via government motion, which allowed undocumented individuals delivered to the USA as kids a pathway to stay within the nation.
Bondi was Florida legal professional common through the 2018 taking pictures at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive Faculty in Parkland, Fla., through which a former pupil killed 17 individuals and wounded 17 others. Following that tragedy, she labored with victims’ households to move a complete college security invoice that included new funding for pupil psychological well being helps and safety measures, like locks and cameras; required faculties to set up threat-assessment groups to reply to regarding pupil conduct; and established a program that allowed skilled, screened “college guardians” to hold weapons campus.
That regulation additionally raised the minimal gun buy age from 18 to 21 and included a “purple flag regulation,” a coverage supported by each Bondi and Trump that permits courts to droop a person’s entry to firearms if they’re deemed a menace to themselves or others. These legal guidelines have confronted some criticism from gun-rights organizations, however they’ve additionally been supported by college security researchers citing analysis that mass shooters usually sign their intention to hurt upfront.
Whereas college security is essentially ruled by state and native coverage, the Justice Division administers a number of packages that have an effect on it, together with the Group Oriented Policing grants that can be utilized to rent college useful resource officers, and violence-prevention packages.
Different key officers
Some officers in positions that aren’t Cupboard-level might even have dramatic impacts on Ok-12 faculties.
Workplace of Administration and Funds: Trump chosen Russell Vought, a co-author of Undertaking 2025, to direct the Workplace on Administration and Funds, which helps put together budgets that align with the president’s priorities.
Undertaking 2025 requires decreasing federal training spending and consolidating packages into broad block grants, which Trump proposed unsuccessfully in his first time period.
Vought beforehand led the workplace on the finish of Trump’s first time period.
Federal Communications Fee: Trump selected Brendan Carr to be chairman of the Federal Communications Fee, an company that oversees the $4 billion E-Price program, which funds college know-how, cybersecurity, and web entry.
E-Price is funded via the $9 billion Common Service Fund, which collects charges from phone and cable corporations. The Supreme Court docket is contemplating a lawsuit contending these charges are an unlawful tax.
Carr wrote the Undertaking 2025 chapter on the FCC. In it, he says Congress ought to require Large Tech corporations, like Google and Amazon, to pay into the Common Service Fund.
As a present commissioner, Carr has supported a push to roll again internet neutrality laws, which have been lately struck down by a federal appeals courtroom.
