ST. PAUL, Minn. — On Thursday, March 20, President Trump signed an executive order attempting to close the US Department of Education.
The latest order instructs Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education” while somehow ensuring the “uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.” The order also instructs the federal government to withhold funds from schools and students that do not adhere to the Trump Administration’s extreme political ideology.
This comes after last week’s mass firings at the Department, when the Trump administration laid off over 1,300 employees in one day – claiming that it would make the Department more “efficient” in carrying out its responsibilities of enforcing civil rights protections, administering Pell grants and student loans, funding special education, and supporting underfunded schools and students.
In January, President Trump signed two other executive orders attacking public education – including one executive order instructing the Secretary of Education to prioritize the defunding of public schools through voucher systems, and another executive order that called for the censorship and whitewashing of American history curriculum, and the demonization of LGBTQ students.
In response to these repeated attacks on America’s system of public education, Senator Liz Boldon (DFL-Rochester) released the following statement:
“Donald Trump and his top campaign donor, Elon Musk are sending a clear message to America’s students: your education is not our priority. America’s public education system is intended to provide all students – regardless of gender, race, creed, socioeconomic status and zip code – with a free, high-quality education. Trump and Musk are attacking our public education system, dismantling our agencies, gutting our social safety nets and services, and stealing from our most vulnerable students – all to give more tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy.
“Let’s be very clear – this is not ‘returning education to the states,’ as they claim. Minnesota and other states already administer and govern education for the most part. The federal government is in charge of supplementing special education and supporting underfunded schools and students. The Trump Administration is attempting to strong-arm schools into complying with their extreme agenda, and withhold funds from schools that don’t. This is the opposite of local control. This is cruel authoritarian censorship.
“In Minnesota, DFL-ers are standing up for our students. These past two years, we’ve made great strides to improve student achievement and learning outcomes. Minnesota’s Universal School Breakfast and Lunch, tuition-free state colleges and universities, student literacy initiatives, prohibition on book bans, and historic increases in education spending will go a long way in those efforts. We cannot and will not let Donald Trump, Elon Musk and Congressional Republicans take us backwards.”
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