It’s no secret that President-Elect Donald Trump wants to make big changes to U.S. education, but are they good changes? I and many who work in the education field have strongly said otherwise. President Trump wants to set public schools back by removing the Department of Education, dismantling diversity progressions, and pouring fear into the school lives of students.
“It’s a bad idea,” says a well-renowned high school educator, Mark Stedman. “I think everyone can agree that there’s a lot of waste in government and we need to tighten up and clean up, but at this point, he’s just destroying things–dismantling things–and there’s no plan to what we’re going to do afterward, because many of these organizations, including the Department of Education, do have very important functions. I’m against it, and until somebody can come up with a plan on how we’re going to solve all the problems the Department of Education was working on solving, I’ll still be against it.”
President Trump has accused the Department of Education of “indoctrinating racial, sexual, and political material.” This, quite frankly, is not true. It is not wrong, inappropriate, or immoral to educate students about people who may come from different backgrounds or to be open and encouraging of their identities. No two students are the same, and it is very important to educate young minds about our world’s diversity. According to the National Library of Medicine, positive and openly diverse school environments limit racism, bigotry, and bullying when students are taught that all kinds of differences are normal.
“If anybody ever asked me, I’d remind them that no politician benefits from an educated population. I think the problem for any politician on either side of the aisle and education is education is inherently a liberal idea, we don’t teach liberal ideas but the whole notion of teaching everyone as much as we can is a very liberal thing and to teach critical thinking–a skeptic of what they hear–is counterproductive for politicians,” Stedman shares. He believes that politicians strive to control the narrative and develop specific belief systems because “when you become highly educated, you become difficult to control.” Stedman says that what politicians call “indoctrination” is often what goes against their agenda because that means they no longer have control over what they’re trying to push the populous to believe.
“Everything about it is negative,” Stedman says regarding President Trump’s encouragement of ICE to infiltrate schools through an announcement from the Trump administration, which has yet to be confirmed. “It’s just creating fear in schools where kids can’t come and feel safe, whether it’s for their families or themselves.” Stedman believes that President Trump’s urging ICE to make arrests in or near schools will only cause harm. He says that regardless of the intention or motivation, it will destroy public education, breed fear, and force students to avoid school altogether. Students affected by ICE can’t feel safe in their homes, and now, they can’t feel safe in their schools.
Safety isn’t the only priority when it comes to public education. Inclusion is a big part of school. Diversity and the encouragement of being oneself are often key practices to making students feel included and comfortable with expressing their identities, but these practices are slowly being taken away from students of all ages. “It’s going to ostracize kids,” Stedman is adamant. “It’s going to allow the bullies and the people who are thoughtless to the variety of people we have to act upon their distrust and fear of those people. It’s a negative environment; nothing positive comes from that.”
Along with this, President Trump has allowed the banning of books in school libraries under the guise of particular books violating civil rights laws. While some books can justifiably be removed from school shelves, a pattern among these books has been spotted. More often than not, these books openly feature people of color or members of the LGBTQ community. “It’s an age-determining thing,” Stedman expresses, “but once you’re in high school, banning books is just Nazism. It’s beyond controlling the narrative, it’s creating your indoctrination program. Freedom of learning should be exactly that.”
President Trump has taken his role head-on but is actively running in the wrong direction. Our country has been built upon the ideal of freedom, but how can one be free if their lives are controlled before they can become an adult? The answer is simple: these initiatives are not being made to better America, but rather form our country to align with conservative beliefs and ideals. In such a short time, our country has begun to crumble, with nothing but red bubbling to the surface. This red sea of censorship, restriction, hate speech, apathy, and corruption has flooded over our home as we know it, drowning everyone who disagrees and keeping those delusionally blind afloat. It’s not long before schools aren’t the only thing trying to be controlled.
