Why Black Kids Need the Education Dept. — and Why Trump Wants it Gone

By Aziah Siid, Word in Black

Donald Trump, the once and perhaps future president, talks about it frequently. Project 2025, the radical conservative blueprint for dismantling the federal government, put it high on the next president’s to-do list. 

They both call for the Department of Education to be demolished. 

While it’s become one of Trump’s favorite talking points, he’s not the first president to come up with the idea. He’s the latest in a long line of powerful, right-wing conservatives dating back to President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, who want to abolish the 157-year-old department. 

The DOE sets the nation’s education policy through initiatives like the Every Student Succeeds Act and the Higher Education Act. It also helps guarantee all students have access to a fair and equitable education for all children. But it also protects the civil rights of minority or disadvantaged children, and has helped countless Black students pay for college.   

What’s less obvious is why far-right Republicans want to blow it up in the first place. 

Trump has repeatedly said he plans to “close the Department of Education, move education back to the states.” 

Learn what he means and how it will hurt some students.

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