After decades of too much federal interference in schools, the states are now hoping Donald Trump's administration will be more hands-off about accountability.
The recent election raised many questions, and many topics were debated — except education. In fact, the glaring absence of education in any debate or discussion was quite alarming. We had no way of gauging where the candidates stood on this important agenda.
Now that we have a president-elect, many of the answers are still missing so far. Trump did announce Betsy DeVos as the next Secretary of Education, but beyond that is only a lot of speculation and fear. Still, the states are gung-ho about getting greater control during the Trump presidency.
Much of it has less to do with Trump than with the latest reauthorization of the Every Student Succeeds Act. Based on this, Washington has already been poised to return a lot more authority to the states over their respective K-12 policies.
The states don't see anything jeopardizing this agreement during the upcoming Trump era. In fact, they expect the process to accelerate. As a result of this positive outlook, states are moving ahead with their agendas that are consistent with high-quality ESSA plans. In this way, they hope to be ahead of the game and be prepared with definitive answers when it's time to face the federal government.
Why are they so happy? First, there were the annual standardized test issues under President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind Act. Then the Obama administration brought forth teacher evaluations and school-turnaround initiatives under waivers of NCLB requirements.
State leaders termed these Washington-driven policies "wacky new changes from the federal level." They are hoping for autonomy and the ability to implement important and necessary changes at the state level soon.
In a Republican-led administration, we may see:
- Increased role of the private sector in public education
- Connecting student test scores with teacher evaluations
- Favoring school choice
- Support and increase in charter school expansion
- Less federal interference
The focus on school choice is strong in the Trump-Pence agenda, toward which they aim to add a federal investment of $20 billion. States will have more autonomy in following a public or private school student and allocate funds accordingly.
It is clear the GOP favors charter, private and magnet schools over the public ones. The agenda has also touched on providing school choice to children living in poverty, college costs and tax breaks, better accessibility and recognition for vocational and technical education along with autonomy at the state level.
Detractors, however, feel the lack of federal interference could backfire. They are also apprehensive about the how teachers' unions are going to be viewed at by an administration that repudiates all kinds of unions.
Whichever way the wind blows, everyone is bracing for the shakeup in the current education establishment. Most are expecting a drastic scale-back of the federal government's role in both K-12 and higher education — some are anticipating a drastic scale-back of the Education Department altogether.
There is no doubt that Trump as POTUS will be disruptive in many spheres, so uncertainty over education policy will remain.