Trump white House Archived / Flickr (Left), Adobe Stock (Right)
CV NEWS FEED // In a series of remarks, President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to shepherd sweeping changes to the country’s education policy during his second term – at the primary, secondary, collegiate, and university levels alike.
In a recent video address, Trump unveiled an education policy plan that included supporting school choice for all parents, allowing school prayer, and abolishing the controversial U.S. Department of Education.
“Here are 10 key ideas that will power our movement for great schools,” he said at the beginning of the brief video.
“First, we will respect the right of parents to control the education of their children,” the president-elect declared.
“Second, we will empower parents and local school boards to hire and reward great principals and teachers and also to fire the poor ones,” he continued, “the one whose performance is unsatisfactory.”
“They will be fired,” he said. “Like on The Apprentice, ‘You’re fired.’”
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“Third, we will ensure our classrooms are focused not on political indoctrination but on teaching the knowledge and skills needed to succeed,” Trump said.
“Fourth, we will teach students to love their country,” he added, “not to hate their country like they’re taught right now.”
“Fifth, we will support bringing back prayer to our schools,” Trump said.
“Sixth, we will achieve schools that are safe, secure, and drug-free, with immediate expulsion for any student who harms a teacher or another student,” he said.
“Seventh, we will give all parents the right to choose another school for their children if they want,” Trump continued. “It’s called school choice.”
“Eighth, we will ensure students have access to project-based learning experiences inside the classroom to help train them for meaningful work outside the classroom,” the president-elect noted.
“Ninth, we will strive to give all students access to internships and work experiences that can set them on a path to their first job,” Trump outlined.
“I want them to be more successful than Trump,” he quipped. “Let them go out and be more successful. I will be the happiest person in the world.”
“Tenth, we will ensure that all schools provide excellent jobs and career counseling so that high school and college students can get a head start on jobs and careers best suited to their God-given talents,” the president-elect indicated.
At the end of the video, Trump said that very early in his second term he will be “closing up the Department of Education in Washington, DC, and sending all education and education work and needs back to the states.”
“We want them to run the education of our children because they’ll do a much better job of it,” he said. “We spend more money per pupil by three times than any other nation. And yet we’re absolutely at the bottom.”
In a separate video, Trump specifically announced planned policy reforms geared toward the nation’s higher education institutions.
“Tuition costs at colleges and universities have been exploding while academics have been obsessed with indoctrinating America’s youth,” he stated. “The time has come to reclaim our once great educational institutions from the radical left.”
The president-elect announced that the “secret weapon” his administration will use to accomplish this feat “will be the college accreditation system.”
“It’s called accreditation for a reason,” he explained. “The accreditors are supposed to ensure that schools are not ripping off students and taxpayers but they have failed totally.”
Trump vowed that when he reassumes the presidency in January, “I will fire the radical left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist maniacs and lunatics.”
“We will then accept applications for new accreditors who will impose real standards on colleges once again and once and for all,” he continued:
These standards will include defending the American tradition and Western civilization, protecting free speech, eliminating wasteful administrative positions that drive up costs incredibly, removing all Marxist diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) bureaucrats, offering options for accelerated and low-cost degrees, providing meaningful job placement and career services, and implementing college entrance and exit exams to prove that students are actually learning and getting their money’s worth.
Trump also announced that he will direct the Department of Justice (DOJ) “to pursue federal civil rights cases against schools that continue to engage in racial discrimination.”
“And schools that persist in explicit unlawful discrimination under the guise of equity will not only have their endowments taxed,” Trump vowed, “but through budget reconciliation I will advance a measure to have them fined up to the entire amount of their endowment.”
“A portion of the seized funds will then be used as restitution for victims of these illegal and unjust policies,” he added:
Colleges have gotten hundreds of billions of dollars from hardworking taxpayers, and now, we are going to get this anti-American insanity out of our institutions once and for all.
We are going to have real education in America.
