President Trump barely mentioned U.S. schools in his address to Congress on Tuesday night — and when he did, he was really talking about other things.
The Trump administration sees academic institutions as staging grounds for significant culture war battles, including free speech on college campuses; diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs; and transgender rights. Trump’s longest reference to education on Tuesday was an anecdote about a child transitioning at school without their parents’ consent.
But beyond eliminating the Education Department and returning power to the states, his White House has had far less to say about test scores, learning loss or student loans.
Experts fear the focus portends a backslide to the kind of political polarization of schools seen during the coronavirus pandemic.
“What has happened with schools over the last few years is that we had COVID, we had school shutdowns and it was through those school shutdowns that you had a lot of this parent anger and frustration. … And we went through a phase where there were a lot of Republicans attacking schools in a lot of ways,” said Jon Valant, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institute.
“There were some hints that maybe, we were still kind of far from normal when it came to our politics in education, but it seemed like maybe we were starting to turn a bit of the corner” but “I think these last couple of months and last night’s speech again, just communicate that that’s not the case anymore,” Valant added.
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With his speech this week, Trump broke the record for longest such address delivered to Congress in modern history. He talked about Elon Musk, the southern border, tax reform, Ukraine, former President Biden and a long list of other topics.
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But there was no mention of actual education policy or even Trump’s plans to do away with the federal department. When schools did come up, it was through a lens of DEI or what the administration calls “gender ideology.”
“From now on, schools will kick the men off the girls’ team, or they will lose all federal funding,” the president said.
Trump also briefly mentioned his executive order banning critical race theory from public schools.
But while he is focused on getting “wokeness” out of classrooms, education advocates are more worried about chronic absenteeism and learning loss.
The Nation’s Report Card recently revealed fourth and eighth graders are still behind in reading and math, not catching up to where they were pre-pandemic on the subjects. Officials said there was a connection between higher rates of chronic absenteeism and poor scores.
Behind the scenes, meanwhile, the administration appears to be moving forward with plans to eliminate the Department of Education.
A day before his address, Linda McMahon, his new Education secretary, issued a memo to employees telling them of their “final mission.”
Republicans have longed called for the end of the agency, saying that education should be under state or local control.
“The federal government doesn’t usually have a huge role in education policy, but it can shape the agenda on what states pursue and local districts,” said Morgan Scott Polikoff, a professor of education policy at the University of Southern California.
“It seems the federal government is kind of wiping its hands of having any role in addressing those issues,” Polikoff added. “States often, although not always, need some external pressure in order to want to tackle difficult issues, and the federal government can provide that.”
The Hill has reached out to the Education Department for further comment.
A recent Gallup poll found the highest unsatisfaction rate for public schools in decades, and Trump’s culture war issues resonate well with his base.
“I think, by continuing to focus on DEI and the false narrative that he’s created around issues of woke college campuses that he is thinking that he’s playing to the base, which is concerned about higher education as bastions of elite privilege and woke ideology. So it’s consistent with what was put forward in Project 2025, so I think that he hasn’t veered from that,” said Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities.
The Department of Education last week created a “DEI portal” so parents and others can report school practices they believe to be in violation of Trump’s executive orders.
The department has also opened multiple investigations into schools and athletic associations over their policies around transgender athletes.
“So much of Trump’s speech last night was focused on really niche culture war-esque issues, rather than the things that are actually going to support and help American people,” said Cait Smith, director of LGBTQI+ Policy at the Center for American Progress.
“We really didn’t hear any sort of proactive, supportive, helpful vision for what thriving education systems look like for students, and that’s for any students, whether that be trans students, black and brown students, really, I think all young folks were left out of that conversation last night,” she added.
