Project 2025 is Coming for Our Schools
- Marianne Burke, PhD
- Aug 13, 2024
- 10 min read
Public education is on the ballot this November
The outcome of the next presidential election is destined to influence K-12 public education in the United States. We get a preview of what to expect if Donald Trump is elected through the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and candidate Trump’s Agenda 47. Those proposed policy changes for K-12 public education promise a radical change from the public education policies of today. Some have described Project 2025 as “a remarkably detailed guide to turning the United States into a fascist’s paradise.”
Although Trump once enthusiastically embraced the policy reforms published by the Heritage Foundation in Project 2025, recent publicity has prompted Trump to try to distance himself from the document. This attempt to take the heat off the newly published policy document has prompted some to report that the policy effort has stopped. But don't be fooled! The project is completed, the document is published, and the plan is ready for implementation by the next Republican president, so although the team’s work is done the strategy for policy changes remains.
Voters are reminded of similar situations that occurred during the Trump administration. The three Supreme Court justices nominated by Trump swore that they would respect the legal principle of keeping prior rulings in place in their senate hearings, but then they overturned Roe vs. Wade. Fool us twice, shame on us.
It is a “remarkably detailed guide to turning the United States into a fascist’s paradise”
What is Project 2025?
In 1973 a group of conservative operatives founded what became the official infrastructure of the Republican party - The Heritage Foundation. This organization has a major influence on the policies of Republican presidents, members of Congress, Governors, and General Assembly members across the country. Over the years since its founding, nine editions of the ‘Mandate for Leadership’ armed Republican presidential administrations with policy prescriptions, and a recruitment and training playbook. This year’s version is also referred to as Project 2025, the Presidential Transition Project.
These policy documents have been developed by partisans who specialize in how to shape public policy. Each of the nine editions have been considered “policy bibles” that provide conservative administrations with blueprints of policy solutions. The strategy has been very effective, as evidenced by the degree of implementation by Republican presidents. For example, nearly half of the ideas included in the first edition were implemented by President Reagan by the end of his first year in office and two thirds of the ideas were implemented by Trump after his first year as president.
Who authored Project 2025, aka "The Mandate for Leadership"?
Many conservative groups are on the advisory board of the current version of the Mandate for Leadership (page xi) and some of the authors were formerly on Donald Trump’s staff when he was president, and worked with current and former republican governors in Virginia (page xvi). Most notably:
Paul Dans, the director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project was Trump’s former chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM),
Spencer Chretien, associate director of the project, was former special assistant to the president and associate director of Presidential Personnel under Donald Trump.
Lindsey M. Burke, who was the author of the Chapter on Education (page 319), is Director of the Center for Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation, served on Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin’s transition steering committee and landing team for education, and is on the board of two groups that endorse radically conservative public education policy, the Educational Freedom Institute and the Independent Women’s Forum’s Education Freedom Center. She was appointed to the Board of Visitors at George Mason University by Governor Youngin, but because she authored the Project 2025 chapter on Education with proposed policy changes that were so radically right, Speaker of the House Don Scott demanded that the Governor remove her from that Board. The Governor has refused.
Ken Cuccinelli is another author of the 9th edition who served under Trump as Acting Deputy Secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Acting Deputy Secretary, and Chief Regulatory Officer for the Department of Homeland Security. Also, he served as Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia under Governor McDonnell. He is notorious in Virginia circles for his far right and often cruel politics on many topics, including his concern about “education about homosexuals and AIDS in public schools” and his work to prevent same-sex marriage while Attorney General.
Republicans want to end our freedom to learn.
How Project 2025 could influence K-12 Public Education
Proposed changes to public education in Project 2025 include: elimination of the US Department of Education, ending the alleged indoctrination of students, reducing the federal contribution to school budgets, giving parents the choice of how to educate their children, and reversing education policies put in place by the Biden administration. The following drop down sections provide details about each of these plans.
Eliminate the US Department of Education
Project 2025 explains that “Schools should be responsive to parents … and the more the federal government is involved in education, the less responsive to parents the public schools will be. This department [Education] is an example of federal intrusion into a traditionally state and local realm. For the sake of American children, Congress should shutter it and return control of education to the states” (page 285). For these reasons Project 2025 proposes eliminating the federal Department of Education, and Federal education policies, regulations and red tape.
If elimination of the department can not be realized, Project 2025 directs that the Secretary of Education must make serving parents and American ideals the priority. The document calls for passing a “Department of Education Reorganization Act” (page 330) where education would be “publicly funded but education decisions [would] be made by families.” Some of the options that would be reserved for parents include deciding where their students would receive their education and how the student’s share of federal funding would be managed (page 319). The Heritage foundation argues that “education should be publicly funded but education decisions should be made by families.” (page 319)
Under Project 2025, every parent would have the option to direct his or her child’s share of education funding through an education savings account (ESA) funded overwhelmingly by state and local taxpayers, which would empower parents to choose a set of education options that meet their child's unique needs. (page 319) Also, states would be allowed to put their share of federal funding toward any lawful education purpose under state law. (page 351)
In the document, the Heritage Foundation insisted that state and local control over education funding be restored. “As Washington begins to downsize its intervention in education, existing funding should be sent to states as grants over which they have full control, enabling states to put federal funding toward any lawful education purpose under state law.” (page 322) The authors admit that “The next head of this department will have a lot to do—hopefully culminating in the department’s closure and the salutary restoration of educational control to states, localities, and parents.” (page 286)
End (Alleged) Indoctrination of Students
The Heritage Foundation claims that the Department of Education contains “leftist advocates intent on indoctrination” (page 285) and that “Bureaucrats at the Department of Education inject racist, anti-American, ahistorical propaganda into America’s classrooms” (page 6). Furthermore, authors of Project 2025 suggest “the Department of Education…is a convenient one-stop shop for the woke education cartel, which …is not particularly concerned with children’s education.” Also they insist that “Schools need to reject gender ideology and critical race theory” (page 322) and “schools should be responsive to parents, rather than to leftist advocates intent on indoctrination” (page 285)
Alleged indoctrination of public school students is a main rationale that the Foundation gives for wanting to eliminate the Department. They also propose that “Short of this (eliminating the Department of Education), the Secretary of Education should insist that the department serve parents and American ideals, not advocates whose message is that children can choose their own sex, that America is “systemically racist,” that math itself is racist, and that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ideal of a colorblind society should be rejected in favor of reinstating a color-conscious society.” (page 286)
Significantly Reduce Federal Contribution to Local School Budgets
The Heritage Foundation proposes that federal funds under Title I, which provides federal funding for lower income school districts, be administered by a Department other than Education (page 325). Also, they propose that the “revenue responsibility for Title I funding to the states” be given in a “10-year phase-out period” as a “no strings attached formula block grant” after which federal Title 1 funding will end and the need to fund low income students will be the responsibility of each state (page 326).
Another Heritage Foundation proposal that will influence school budgets involves the elimination of Impact Aid (federal funds that replace revenue that would go to schools to make up for the lack of a tax base due to federal property in the school systems), or at least transfer responsibility of the administration of the Impact Aid to other departments. (page 326).
Let Parents Pull Funding from Local Schools
The Heritage Foundation has strong opinions about privatizing public schools. In Project 2025 it states that “Education should be publicly funded but education decisions should be made by families. Ultimately, every parent should have the option to direct his or her child’s share of education funding through an education savings account (ESA), funded overwhelmingly by state and local taxpayers, which would empower parents to choose a set of education options that meet their child's unique needs.” (page 319)
The Heritage Foundation claims that ”Empowering families to choose among a diverse set of education options is key to reform and improved outcomes, and it can be achieved without establishing a new federal program. For example, portability of existing federal education spending to fund families directly or allowing federal tax credits to encourage voluntary contributions to K–12 education savings accounts”. (page 322)
Recently it has been reported that privatization of publicly funded education has surged in “red states” while “blue states” have tended to stay with the traditional public education model. “Critics of changes (privatization) argue they amount to a wealth transfer to families with kids in private schools, and they fear it will result in the weakening or even the eventual privatization of public school systems. They also voice concern over the separation of church and state, since many ESA funds will go toward sending children to religious education.” Since public education is the cornerstone of democracy and was instituted for “the common good”, privatization of public schools using taxpayer’s money for private education seems to have many negative points, including that privatization will:
Take funding away from public schools, giving public school students reduced access to resources needed for a good education.
Offer less accountability and transparency to taxpayers,
Remove anti discrimination standards that are set for public schools. Most states do not protect private school students from discrimination.
Not necessarily improve achievement compared to that for public school students.
Reverse Biden Administration Policies
Project 2025 calls for rescinding many of the education policies implemented by the Biden administration with specific plans to:
Review all the education-related regulations enacted by the Biden Administration.
Review the school meals program and the Income-Driven” student loan program. (page 331)
Rescind Biden’s new requirements and lessen the federal restrictions on charter schools.
Rescind recent changes in data collection methods to remove the “nonbinary” sex category to OCR’S [Office of Civil Rights] data collection authority.”
Rescind restrictions on the use of pronouns. (page 346)
Proposed education policy changes in Agenda 47
In addition to the policy reforms under Project 2025, candidate Trump has posted another list of policy reforms he plans to implement. In Agenda 47 the Trump campaign uses in his election bid the Republicans tactic of trying to frighten parents about supposed “Marxist indoctrination” in public schools. This strategy has been and is central to Trump’s election bid. It is a well known tactic of extreme right and fascist political groups to paint political opponents as Marxists and communists and claim that they dominate education institutions. Currently this allegation is being proposed as a justification to make it easier to fire educators and replace them with ultranationalists and those loyal to conservative administrations.
The Trump campaign is following that strategy and has published their proposed agenda that has the potential to” threaten the stability of the economy and government itself”. Details of the strategy include:
Offering universal school choice.
Eliminating the Department of Education.
Allowing for the direct election of school principals by parents who also be allowed to to hire, fire, and decide on rewards for them, school boards, and teachers.
A promise to get "Critical Race Theory, transgender ideology, and left-wing indoctrination OUT of our schools.”
A plan to cut federal funding to any school “pushing Critical Race Theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children.” Also, if elected the former president plans to pursue civil rights investigations into any school that engages in race-based discrimination.
A plan to “fight for patriotic education in America’s schools” because “decades of poor scholarship have vilified our Founders and the principles that they championed and have taught many of our young people to hate their own country.”
Providing incentives to states and school districts to abolish teacher tenure for grades K-12.
Eliminating the “equity agenda” from classrooms and urging Congress to provide restitution to those who have been discriminated against by “equity” policies.
Reinstatement of the 1776 Commission, which Trump created during his first term and that was disbanded by Joe Biden after he was elected. It is worth mentioning that the 1776 Commission was established in response to the publication of the 1619 project, and the 1776 report has been described as warping“ the history of racism and slavery.”
A promise to “veto any effort to weaponize or nationalize civics education” and “create a credentialing body to certify teachers who embrace patriotic values and support the American Way of Life.”
A promise to fiercely protect “the First Amendment right to pray in public schools.”
The proposed changes under Project 2025 and Agenda 47 would dramatically change our public education system from one that supports the common good to one that “transforms the United States into a banana republic and theocracy—both concepts repugnant to a U.S. Constitution committed to secular governance and equal access under the law.”
There is no place for apathy during this upcoming election because public education is on the ballot. Voters are urged to understand the ramification of electing each candidate and vote for the candidate that supports their views on what is needed to ensure that every child has access to a welcoming, inclusive, safe, relevant, nurturing and quality public education.
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