Republicans in the U.S. Congress and the Senate have made no secret of the fact that they fully support school vouchers, as well as making other targeted changes to public education in the U.S. This has been fully supported by fundamentalist religions like Christian Evangelicals who heavily bankrolled republican campaigns. With no separation of church and state in private or parochial schools students must say the Pledge of Allegiance. And there is no unions representing families and children in those schools, either. And when President Trump named republican and right wing Christian billionaire Betsy DeVos as his Secretary Of Education, he also bestowed on her the power to do whatever she wants.
Dr. John B King Jr pointed out changes to U.S. education policy
Like everything else the Trump administration has done to date, republicans immediately eradicated protections put into place President Obama. Dr. King, who had been the Secretary of Education under Obama, and who recently became CEO of the Washington based non-profit, Education Trust, reflected on those changes by saying that, "As a teacher, as a parent and as a citizen, it’s distressing to see the department walking away from its core responsibility of advancing equity,". One of the first things that President Trump did was to sign an executive order rescinding Obama's Every Student Succeeds Act, a law that included regulations holding states accountable for honoring the law.
Trump's education policies could also end the jobs of 500,000 public school teachers. More recently DeVos rescinded school diversity grants promoting socioeconomic integration in schools with little explanation. She also pulled back on civil rights enforcement, although President Trump promised repeatedly that he would protect African American's civil rights.
Apparently that didn't apply to education. Although President Trump had already signed an executive order rescinding educational civil rights for transgender students, Secretary of DeVos expanded it to cover all students.
There are signals republicans are considering changes in other areas as well
Dr. DeVos and other republicans do not think that there needs to be federal civil rights protections across a broad spectrum.
Republicans are also adamant about acting on education bill, H.R.610 which was sponsored by House republican Steve King of Iowa and titled The Choices in Education Act of 2017. It was sent to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on January 23rd, where it will brought to the floor sometime this year. Although primarily related to school vouchers, the bill also includes changes to the nutrition program for school lunches, and would completely repeal The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Repealing the act would also affect early childhood education programs like Head Start.
Tragically, protections under the Civil Rights Act, along with parent and teacher's rights in the education of their children, could become a thing of the past with republicans now controlling the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the U.S.
government. And that is a very scary vision. Republicans have shown by the changes already made that the education of America's children is based on ideology and not on what is best for children and families.
