AFT’s Weingarten on Trump’s Order to Dismantle the Education Department

WASHINGTON—AFT President Randi Weingarten issued the following statement responding to media reports revealing the draft of Donald Trump’s executive order attempting to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education:

“The Department of Education, and the laws it is supposed to execute, has one major purpose: to level the playing field and fill opportunity gaps to help every child in America succeed. Trying to abolish it—which, by the way, only Congress can do—sends a message that the president doesn’t care about opportunity for all kids. Maybe he cares about it for his own kids or his friends’ kids or his donors’ kids—but not all kids.

“No one likes bureaucracy, and everyone’s in favor of more efficiency, so let’s find ways to accomplish that. But don’t use a ‘war on woke’ to attack the children living in poverty and the children with disabilities, in order to pay for vouchers and tax cuts for billionaires. The American people get this—that’s why polling shows they are squarely opposed to the department’s closure.

“The department is legally required to distribute funds that help 26 million kids living in poverty (Title I), 7.5 million students with disabilities (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), 10 million students who need financial aid to attend college or pursue a trade (Pell grants) and 12 million students who benefit from career and technical education (Perkins grants). Any attempt by the Trump administration or Congress to gut these programs would be a grave mistake, and we will fight them tooth and nail.

“The directive to ‘return decision-making to the states’ fails the smell test. States and districts already govern schools through locally elected school boards, as they should. They put up most of the money and control most of the decisions—from approving curriculum to deciding who graduates.

“Should we do more to improve our public schools by, for example, expanding CTE and aligning curriculum with apprenticeships and pathways, so students can access middle-class jobs straight out of high school? Absolutely. That’s why educators, students and parents rallied at more than 2,000 Protect Our Kids events across the country on Tuesday.

“We implore Congress to make clear to the president that the federal government will not, in the face of this order, abdicate its responsibility to all children, students and working families, who deserve a future full of promise and possibility, not diminished dreams.”