The scene is strange: Donald Trump seated in a White House show, surrounded by children sitting behind schoolchildren, conservative activists, influencers and six republican governors. As if the head of state, for the first time, needed to reassure himself. “He kept emphasizing that his approach was not as radical as it seemed,” notes the New York Times. If he has not shown great enthusiasm, Donald Trump is still the first president to have signed, Thursday, March 20, a decree aimed at “eliminating” the Ministry of Education, an expected and applauded project by the American right, but which can only be completed with the approval of the congress.
If the institution, founded in 1979, cannot be completely dismantled without the adoption of a law requiring 60 votes in the Senate – where the Republicans currently have 53 seats – this decree gives the Minister of Education Linda McMahon the mission of “starting to eliminate the ministry once and for all,” said Donald Trump. During the signing ceremony, the president said he was hoping that she is the “final of Education”. Linda McMahon has already eliminated some 2,000 posts from the ministry. “We will find another occupation, okay?” he launched him.
Far from getting out of nowhere, Donald Trump’s decision realizes a dream in the Republican camp. There Bbcresumed by International mailunderlines that in 1982, “while he went to the Congress for his speech on the state of the Union, American president Ronald Reagan was preparing to issue a message that found an echo with many Republicans: let us abolish the Ministry of Education”. A complete dismantling is a parliamentary power, but the American president and his ally Elon Musk have already dismantled other federal structures without delay the green light of elected officials in the congress.
A decision far from anecdotal
The offensive against this ministry is also part of Donald Trump’s desire to cut into public spending. “The United States spends more for education than any other country […] And yet we are near the list in terms of “school performance, castigated the 47th American president. The argument has been refuted by experts, who underline that the United States is not so badly classified in international tests. The ex-real estate magnet said that the” useful “functions of the Minister would be preserved, in particular scholarships for disadvantaged children and aid for students Handicap.
The impact of this announced dismantling is not comparable to what it is in a centralized country where education is managed at the national level, like France. In the United States, this area is already largely in the local authorities. “These federal funds represent only about 10 % of the financing of primary and secondary education at the national level”, tries to reassure the New York Times. However, the role of the US Ministry of Education is not anecdotal. Federal subsidies play an important role in schools located in economic and social disadvantaged areas. “Donald Trump said he loved little educated people, and now he will have many more people to love,” the American host Jimmy Kimmel reacted strongly on Thursday evening during his Late-Met Show.
“Tyrannical coup de force”
Donald Trump’s decision also arouses the anger of elected democrats, teaching unions and many parents who accuse him of carrying out an unprecedented attack on public education, doubled by a business promoting reactionary ideas. The chief of the Democrats in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, immediately called on the courts to act to “put an end to the tyrannical coup” that this decree represents, “one of the most destructive and devastating measures” never taken by Donald Trump. The chief of the Democrat minority in the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries added in the Wall Street Journal that the closure of the ministry would lead to “a considerable increase in the workforce by class, teaching layoffs and an even greater increase in tuition fees”.
For its part, the American right, in particular evangelical movements, accuses public schools of indoctrinating children by broadcasting “woke” ideas. This pejorative tote term is used to denounce both diversity promotion policies as well as university research on gender or racial discrimination. In certain conservative states of the South, educational content relating to slavery have been modified and novels dealing with homosexuality or racism have been removed from school libraries.