Former President Donald Trump is out with a new education platform as part of his presidential campaign, one chock-full of hard-right policies taking aim at perceived liberal bias in public education.
The main policy planks include:
- Slashing federal funding for "any school or program pushing critical race theory, gender ideology or other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content onto our children."
- Directing federal agencies to "open civil rights investigations into any school district that has engaged in race-based discrimination. That includes discrimination against Asian Americans."
- "Create a new credentialing body that will be the gold standard anywhere in the world to certify teachers who embrace patriotic values support our way of life and understand that their job is not to indoctrinate children"
- Fire Department of Education employees deemed "radicals, zealots and Marxists"
- Banning transgender students who identify as girls from participating in girls sports
And he tells schools he'll give them "massive funding preferences and favorable treatment" if they:
- Abolish teacher tenure at the K-12 level
- Cut school administrators
- Adopt a parents' bill of rights that includes school choice and "curriculum transparency"
- And allow parents to directly elect school principals.
Trump's announcement comes as his main rival for the 2024 GOP presidential race, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, has taken on fights against a similar perception of liberal bias in education. The state recently nixed an AP African American Studies course, and blasted "woke ideology" in businesses and schools in his inauguration speech earlier this month, declaring "Florida is where woke goes to die."
