{"id":788,"date":"2025-03-06T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/?p=788"},"modified":"2025-03-10T14:33:00","modified_gmt":"2025-03-10T14:33:00","slug":"on-schools-trump-talks-dei-and-trans-athletes-not-test-scores-or-student-loans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/06\/on-schools-trump-talks-dei-and-trans-athletes-not-test-scores-or-student-loans\/","title":{"rendered":"On schools, Trump talks DEI and trans athletes, not test scores or student loans"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Trump barely mentioned U.S. schools in his address to Congress<\/a> on Tuesday night \u2014 and when he did, he was really talking about other things. \u00a0<\/p>\n

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 Tuesday was an anecdote about a child transitioning at school without their parents’ consent.<\/p>\n

But beyond eliminating the Education Department<\/a> and returning power to the states, his White House has had far less to say about test scores, learning loss or student loans.<\/p>\n

Experts fear the focus portends a backslide to the kind of political polarization of schools seen during the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat 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,\u201d said Jon Valant, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institute.   <\/p>\n

\u201cThere 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,\u201d Valant added,\u00a0but \u201cI think these last couple of months and last night’s speech, again, just communicate that that’s not the case anymore.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

With his speech this week, Trump broke the record<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom now on, schools will kick the men off the girls team, or they will lose all federal funding,\u201d the president said.<\/p>\n

Trump also briefly mentioned his executive order banning critical race theory from public schools.<\/p>\n

But while he is focused on getting \u201cwokeness\u201d out of classrooms, education advocates are more worried about chronic absenteeism and learning loss.  <\/p>\n

The Nation\u2019s Report Card recently revealed<\/a> fourth graders and eighth graders are still behind in reading and math, not catching up to where they were prepandemic on the subjects. Officials said there was a connection between higher rates of chronic absenteeism and poor scores. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Behind the scenes, meanwhile, the administration appears to be moving forward with plans to eliminate the Department of Education.<\/p>\n

A day before his address, Linda McMahon, his new Education secretary, issued a memo<\/a> to employees telling them of their \u201cfinal mission.\u201d  <\/p>\n

Republicans have longed called for the end of the agency, saying education should be under state or local control.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d said Morgan Scott Polikoff, a professor of education policy at the University of Southern California.   <\/p>\n

\u201cIt 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.”<\/p>\n

The Hill has reached out to the Education Department for further comment.<\/p>\n

A recent Gallup poll found the highest dissatisfaction rate for public schools in decades, and Trump’s culture war issues resonate well with his base.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d said Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities.<\/p>\n

The Department of Education last week created a “DEI portal”<\/a> so parents and others can report school practices they believe to be in violation of Trump’s executive orders. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The department has also opened multiple investigations into schools and athletic associations over their policies around transgender athletes.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo 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,\u201d said Cait Smith, director of LGBTQI+ Policy at the Center for American Progress.  <\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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 \u2014 really, I think all young folks were left out of that conversation last night,\u201d she added. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Trump barely mentioned U.S. schools in his address to Congress on Tuesday night \u2014 and when he did, he was really talking about other things. \u00a0 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":789,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788\/revisions\/789"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}