Partisan debates over what’s to blame for declining academic performance preview the battles ahead over education reform.
In a House hearing on Wednesday, Democrats accused Republicans of promoting divisiveness, inequity, and resegregation as part of a plan to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education.
The debate at a hearing on the state of American education came a day after President Donald Trump said he would work with Congress and teacher unions to close the department and let the states run schools.
Republican members of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce reiterated that the newly released National Assessment of Educational Progress shows a continued decline in reading and math nationwide.
Republicans expressed support for Trump’s executive orders promoting universal school choice to include taxpayer-funded private school vouchers while ending critical race theory curriculum; diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs; and transgender ideology in public schools.
They said state education departments, parents, and voters should decide on curriculum and instruction plans, not the federal government.
“Many schools lost focus on core skills needed for successful careers,” the committee’s chairman, Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), said at the start of the hearing in Washington. “They are fixated by ideologies fueled by the federal government.”
“Kids are learning about the 15 latest genders, but not how to do multiplication at all,” said Rep. Robert Onder Jr. (R-Mo.).
Those comments sparked the ire of committee Democrats, who invited Jenai Nelson, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund, to speak.
Nelson said the Department of Education, through its role in administering student loans and providing billions of dollars to low-income schools and special education programs that assist students with learning disabilities, is needed to ensure equality for families of all incomes and students of all races.
“Our country is at an inflection point, and so is American education,” she said, adding that she thinks public schools are underfunded and that Republicans are ignoring youth gun violence and student mental health issues.
Trump has not publicly stated any intentions to cut funding for low-income schools, special education, or student loans for higher education. He has said that states and other federal departments could take on those functions in dismantling the Department of Education.
Committee Republicans say billions of dollars saved by reforming education would benefit students and teachers, not administrators, government bureaucracies, and teacher unions.
Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) gave the example of the flagship university in his state: As tuition and fees spiked by about $7,000, the teaching staff shrank while the administration staff increased.
The one area of education reform that committee members appeared to agree on is strengthening career and technical instruction in an era when skilled employees are needed in all sectors to outpace the growth of artificial intelligence.
Johnny Taylor Jr., CEO of the Society for Human Resources Management, said the school-to-workforce pipeline “is leaking,” largely because new employees lack the maturity needed to work full-time jobs regardless of diploma or degree level. Tardiness and aptitude remain a problem, and many young people don’t even know they aren’t supposed to bring their parents to job interviews.
“They lack soft skills,” he said.
