Trump Turns to Federal Overreach in Education
Trump promised on the campaign trail to return education back to the states.
President Trump has signed an executive order to give Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos permission to start the process of moving education back to the local level.
The New York Times reported:
The order requires Betsy DeVos, Mr. Trump’s education secretary, to review, modify and possibly repeal any regulations and guidelines that are not consistent with federal law.
Mr. Trump described the order as “another critical step to restoring local control,” and one that fulfills one of his campaign promises.
“For too long, the federal government has imposed its will on state and local governments,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference to sign the order. “The result has been education that spends more, and achieves far, far, far less.”
DeVos has 300 days to review “education regulations on grades K-12 proposed and enacted by former President Barack Obama.” She will then “produce a report that details which actions she believes overreached.”
She will have to review the Every Student Succeeds Act and Common Core. Obama received a lot of criticism over Common Core after parents noticed the outrageous homework assignments for their children. Parents across the country have formed numerous groups on Facebook in order to expose the outrageous standards and try to repeal the program from their states.
A few have embraced this move. From The Washington Post:
Trump’s order brings “welcome attention to a much-overlooked problem of behavior that has festered through all administrations,” said Jeanne Allen, a veteran of the Reagan administration who runs the D.C.-based Center for Education Reform, which advocates for vouchers, charter schools and other forms of choice.
Allen said she’s hopeful that DeVos will get rid of the department’s guidance to schools on a variety of issues. The secretary could do that without an executive order and without involvement from Congress, as she did in February when she withdrew controversial guidance to schools on accommodating transgender students.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) applauded Trump’s decision because “the federal government had in recent years exceeded its legal authority in creating regulations and guidance.”
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Comments
I hope that Secretary DeVos does not wait 300 days to take action on the regulations that she identifies as Federal overreach.
Deciding and implementing over the “schools'” summer vacation (this summer of 2017) would an excellent time to do it.
Here’s the EO https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/04/26/presidential-executive-order-enforcing-statutory-prohibitions-federal
The EO states that DeVos is to look all the way back to the act that authorized the establishment of the department – “The Secretary of Education (Secretary) shall review all Department of Education (Department) regulations and guidance documents relating to DEOA, GEPA, and ESEA, as amended by ESSA.”
Another interesting section – ” The Secretary shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, rescind or revise any regulations that are identified pursuant to subsection (b) of this section as inconsistent with statutory prohibitions. The Secretary shall also rescind or revise any guidance documents that are identified pursuant to subsection (b) of this section as inconsistent with statutory prohibitions. The Secretary shall, to the extent consistent with law, publish any proposed regulations and withdraw or modify any guidance documents pursuant to this subsection no later than 300 days after the date of this order.”
The EO then defines what is a guidance document and it includes “Dear Colleague” letters.
It is possible that the changes can come out when they are identified as needed. It would be better to have “winning” announcements every week.
Seems like yet another common sense EO from President Trump. I expect the left to get all outrageously outragety in three…two…
“the federal government had in recent years exceeded its legal authority in creating regulations and guidance.”
Well, I don’t know … it’s not obvious that the Federal government exercising only its legal authority has done much good, either.
” DeVos has 300 days to review “education regulations on grades K-12 proposed and enacted by former President Barack Obama.” She will then “produce a report that details which actions she believes overreached.”
The federal Dept. of Edu. should be abolished outright.
I graduated high school and went to college and managed to get a good education before Jimmah Carter created the federal DoE back in 1979.
Abolish the federal Dept. of Edu.
But short of that, this is a good 1st step.
See my comment above (published a few minutes before your comment).
The EO says that DeVos SHALL review ALL regulations and refers to going back the the 1979 law that established the department. Once she gets through her review, there may not be any regulations left to manage.
See https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget16/16action.pdf to see what’s being called mandatory vs discretionary spending. Most seems to be discretionary spending.
The teachers’ unions are having a major cow now about vouchers. Just wait until this gets out,; they will apoplectic.
Teacher’s unions having a cow??
I fail to see a downside to this.
But they won’t give us milk or meat……..
Secretary DeVos, please do not forget to ax Fed Funds for Colleges.
I believe this alumnus comment pretty well sums up how most Americans feel about them.
“JT: Behaviour like this is why I laugh anytime I receive a request for donations from my alma mater as I toss them in the trash. (XYU), like many colleges, thrives under one rule. More money, more money, more money.”
Nonprofit accuses……University Foundation of fraud
I save the links to articles about my schools so when I get the calls I can talk about safe environments vs hostile study environments. They usually agree with the general concepts but get upset when I start quoting what the liberal profs have said or written.
When they come back with a person’s right to free speech, I agree but mention that they could have written the article without saying where they worked. Once they mention that they are the department chair of a major university, then I know that if a student did not have the same attitude, that student suffers.
They usually agree but can’t come back with a reason why I should still donate.