While the country shifts their focus to the newly erupting war in the Middle East they begin to turn their backs on the war happening on US soil. This war may not involve heavy weaponry and mass casualties but it is crippling an essential institution for a functioning democracy. The Department of Education has been ransacked by executive orders and new policy initiatives under the guise of “restoring the greatness of the United States education system”, according to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. These assaults on education will have political and social ramifications that have the chance of setting the United States back decades.
President Donald Trump’s first few months in office hit the Department of Education like a blitz attack. Executive orders laid off almost half of all employees working at the Department of Education, cancelled billions of dollars in educational programs and teacher development, terminated DEI programs, redirected billions of dollars in funding for public schools, and much more. While these cuts will affect all students, minority students will be hit the hardest and less affluent school districts will disproportionately be affected. These orders have fully eroded the department’s ability to provide equitable opportunities to all students and throws away decades of progress towards fair educational access.
These attacks on education come at a time when our students are most vulnerable. The Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 sent students home to learn virtually for almost an entire year and the ramifications are glaringly obvious when looking at the numbers. According to an assessment of reading and math scores of elementary aged children that was completed in 2022 by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), there was the largest score drop in reading since 1990 and the first ever score drop in Mathematics. This assessment also addressed the disproportionate score decreases in black students compared to their white classmates. Some students even reported not having access to a computer while in lockdown and missing out on entire semesters of schooling.
Why Target Education?
Some may wonder why an administration would want to target education, which is a crucial pillar of democracy. This is not a random attack to save money or instill a new and better system but rather a tool in destabilizing our democracy. Dismantling our public education system is a political move to promote further corruption. A key characteristic of a democracy is not only access to education but also democratic accountability.
Democratic accountability is the broad, overall mechanism that ensures the continued responsiveness of the government to the preferences of its citizens. This is usually then broken down from the broad overarching mechanism and measured by vertical and horizontal accountability. Vertical accountability is the mechanism that allows citizens to hold executives and elected officials directly accountable to citizens through elections and other demonstrations of civic participation.
Vertical accountability requires citizens not only to have the opportunity to act but also the capacity to act. The capacity to act is determined by one’s education and ability to decipher and comprehend what is happening politically. These attacks on education do not by coincidence disproportionately affect minorities and less affluent communities but rather targets them. If these communities continuously face educational barriers and receive sub par education they will not have the capacity to recognize corruption and thus cannot speak out about it or vote accordingly.
A case study done in Brazil highlighted that information existing about corruption and wrongdoings is not enough for democratic accountability. Citizens must not only know about wrongdoings of the government but they must also be able to correctly evaluate it. This study also showed that while all citizens reacted negatively to corruption, only some were able to distinguish the credibility of the sources. Politically sophisticated individuals are able to distinguish credibility and therefore punish politicians more effectively.
Political sophistication is directly tied to education levels. Those that showed higher political sophistication were almost always linked to having a better education or socio-economic status than those that showed lower political sophistication. This creates a broad implication that increased education may indirectly reduce corruption. Waging war on education is a major step in a long-term goal to subtly increase corruption and be able to get away with it.
This is not Isolated
The Trump administration is not the first executive administration in a democracy to try to dismantle public education. In fact, this is such a popular phenomenon in political science that dismantling educational infrastructure is a measured sign of democratic erosion.
One of President Nicolás Maduro’s first major moves signaling the start of his authoritarian rule was cutting almost all spending in education. Almost 40% of students under the age of 18 do not regularly attend schooling due to lack of access and a lack of teachers. Venezuela had once been a pillar of education in Latin America under former President Hugo Chávez and was recognized by the United Nations for their pioneering in the field.
Similarly in Brazil, former President Jair Bolsonaro completely gutted the public educational system financially and in curriculum. The former president’s administration reduced funding for federal universities by 30% and they were instructed to not prioritize studies in the humanities. The Ministry of Education also changed their guidelines and removed any references to gender equality, violence against women, and diversity. Sound familiar?
The Fight Isn’t Over
While the war on education may seem like an overwhelming battle that can’t be stopped, the United States is not hopeless. In a democracy citizens have the right and the power to hold their leaders accountable and to vote accordingly. Steps to hold this administration accountable have begun across the country. The third “No Kings” protest in the past ten months occurred this past weekend and an estimated eight million people took to the streets to protest the current administration. From major sprawling urban cities to small rural towns, from young children to the elderly, the citizens of the United States have a drive to maintain their democracy.
Your post is very insightful! Alongside dismantling the Department of Education, Trump’s brand of populism targets our social conceptions of education. Anti-elitism is an aspect of populism, and Trump has framed the evil liberal elite as overly educated. By separating real hardworking Americans from overeducated, lazy bureaucrats, Trump has villainized education. As you mentioned, the targeting of certain aspects of curriculum, such as recent book bans and CRT as tools to indoctrinate children, makes schools and educational systems seem corrupt and outright harmful. By both limiting the effectiveness of the Department of Education and villainizing the educated and education itself, Trump is certainly eroding people’s ability to counter democratic erosion.
Your eloquently written blog post shows an interesting connection between the quality of the U.S.’s democracy and education policy, specifically through the lens of participation. What stands out to me within this blog post is how it aligns with Robert Dahl’s idea that one of the factors that democracy depends on is citizens’ ability to exercise their formal rights. As one’s education shapes political understanding, then by weakening education, it would also weaken effective participation. With this mindset, weaker education can be linked to weaker political understanding. I appreciated your comparison to cases like Brazil and Venezuela, which shows a worldwide pattern showing that institutional weakening often happens slowly and unevenly, rather than collapsing all at once. The protests you mentioned are also very significant, while it may not be a resolution, it reveals that civic engagement is still alive and active.
This is a nice analysis on why attacks on education matter for a democracy. It connects closely to the course readings on vertical accountability, and how it only works when citizens have the capacity to evaluate political information. I think the Brazil case you mention is a perfect example of how information about corruption isnt necessarily enough, people need some political sophistication to interpret it properly. I also think the comparisons to Venezuela and Brazil show that the pattern isnt isolated, dismantling educational infrastructure is a documented warning sign of autocratization.
This is such an important point and conversation Emma. I really appreciate how you tied defunding public education to an increase in corruption because public awareness andd civic engagement is lessened. I think the example with Brazil also adds a lot of credibility to the argument here. While anyone with a moral compass should know that gutting public education isn’t good, the example definitely helped the point you are making here land with evidence of just how harmful this can be. I also wanted to mention that the end of the blog post gave me goosebumps. It’s so easy to feel so overwhelmed by all the attacks to funding, education, knowledge, but the reminder that people are fighting back and do care, and that people have that drive to maintain democracy gives me just a little bit of hope!