The Department Of Education Gone Under Project 2025

Earlier this year Texas Signal published an introduction to Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project. From now until the Election we will be highlighting how Project 2025 would impact the lives of everyday Texans. This week we are taking a deep dive into the chapter on the Department of Education. 

Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project, is essentially a blueprint for running the government under a new Trump presidency. The plans, which are a set of policy recommendations pertaining to government agencies that runs nearly 1,000 pages, are all available online. The conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation is the principal organization behind Project 2025. Their connections to Ted Cruz are extensive, and there is a deep parallel between what he says and what is included in Project 2025. Especially in their vision of the Department of Education.

The mission statement of Project 2025 on the Department of Education is straightforward. Literally, it would be abolished. “Federal education policy should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated,” writes Lindsey Burke in the opening sentence of her chapter. Burke is the director of the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation. 

Once the Department of Education is dismantled, Project 2025 would have elementary and secondary education look like something from the 1950’s. There’s a big emphasis on vouchers and charter schools or promoting “universal private school choice” as Burke refers to it.

Texas remains the largest red state not to pass school choice legislation, but that inaction by the state legislature could be moot under a Trump-Vance Department of Education. Burke highlights Arizona as an example of a state that has successfully passed and increased school choice programs. 

Previous reporting from ProPublica shows the disastrous impact those education savings accounts have had on the state’s budget. And while Texas Governor Greg Abbott called four special sessions to try and pass school choice in the legislature, he met resistance from several rural Republicans who balked at taking funds from public schools, which are often the largest employees in dense counties. 

Cruz is also a major supporter of vouchers. In fact, he often refers to school choice as “the civil rights issue of the 21st century.” With Burke he also has a kindred spirit in bashing teachers unions like the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers. Under Project 2025, Burke calls on Congress to rescind the congressional charter for NEA and to “remove the false impression that federal taxpayers support the political activities of this special interest group.”

Another major hallmark of Project 2025’s stance on education is “safeguarding civil rights.” For Burke this means “rejecting gender ideology and critical race theory.” Burke calls upon rescinding several protections for LGBTQ+ students and teachers that the Biden Administration extended under Title X.

Project 2025 also calls for privatizing federal student loans, as well as halting the public service loan forgiveness program, which has helped thousands of government of nonprofit workers forgive their student loan debt after ten years.

Cruz is also a vocal opponent of student loan forgiveness. He has repeatedly criticized the Biden Administration’s efforts to help student borrowers, many of whom are saddled with payments that never go down thanks to interest accrued. Cruz even referred to Biden’s debt relief actions as a “vote-buying scheme.”

Under Project 2025, education in the United States would be wholly transformed (and not just because the actual Department would be eliminated). Parents, students, teachers, and anybody with a vested interest in public education should understand the implications of what Burke and Cruz are championing when it comes to schools.

Texas Signal has previously written about Project 2025’s vision for the Department of Health and Human Services. In that chapter, the early childhood development program Head Start, which works with thousands of Texas kids, would be abolished.