Trump issues orders on K-12 ‘indoctrination,’ school choice and campus protests
The order reinstates the 1776 Commission, which Trump established during his first term as president to promote patriotic educational programs.
The administration announced officially Wednesday that President Donald Trump had signed three executive order directives that directed federal agencies to end “indoctrination” of K-12 education and launch investigations into campus demonstrations, as well as enacting a federal school-choice initiative.
From the very beginning of his second term, President Obama’s orders have been stacked on top of a long list of directives. Many of them are a continuation of a socially conservative education policy agenda.
The orders provide a clear outline on how Trump will continue to embrace heated culture debates, while pressing for fundamental changes in the U.S. educational system. This tactic was praised by congressional Republicans, but condemned immediately by teachers union leaders and campus freedom advocates.
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Tim Walberg, the House education chair (R-Mich. ), said on Wednesday that “President Trump keeps his promise to protect students, hold schools responsible, combat campus antisemitism and empower parents to become stewards for their children’s educational experience.” “This is an important change from the previous Administration, which has put politics before students for the last four years.”
K-12 schooling
The executive order of Donald Trump on “Ending Radical Indoctrination” in K-12 schooling seeks to block funding for schools which include “gender ideologies and critical race theories in the classroom,” utilizing language and policy definitions often similar to state laws that try to regulate classroom lessons regarding race, gender and American History in conservative-led jurisdictions.
The order stated that “Imprinting anti American, subversive and harmful ideologies, or false ones, on the children of our nation not only violates anti-discrimination laws, but also usurps parental authority.”
The order aims to bring together a large number of law enforcement and domestic policy experts in an effort to identify federal grants and contracts that are supporting what the administration has described as “the instruction, advancement or promotion of discriminatory equity ideologies or gender ideology” at elementary and secondary schools, plus programs for teacher training, employment, and certification.
Trump also directed the Attorney General to work with local and state legal officials to “file suitable actions” against school officials and teachers for criminal violations – or acts that are deemed “unlawfully facilitating” a child’s adoption of a gender identity different from their biological sex.
The order states that the social transition process may include counseling by school counselors, a child being called “nonbinary,” allowing a child to use locker rooms or bathrooms that match their gender identity, and allowing a student to take part in athletic competitions at school or other extracurricular events “specifically designated” for people of the opposite sex.
Within 90 days, Trump’s secretaries for defense, education, and health will consult with the office of the attorney general to develop an “Ending Indoctrination Strategy”.
The order reinstates also the 1776 Commission, which Trump had created during his first tenure in office. It was set up to promote patriotic educational programs and counter lessons he believes divide Americans over race and slavery.
The Education Department is providing funding and administrative assistance to the commission. It will also advise federal agencies about civics lessons in national monuments, and the upcoming 250th Anniversary of the signing of America’s Declaration of Independence.
Antisemitism
After the attack by Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7, 20,23, the president’s executive orders to combat antisemitism will address the increase in antisemitic incidents occurring on campus.
The White House announced earlier on Wednesday that the order would require the Justice Department and Attorney General to take “immediate actions” to prosecute antisemitic crime such as vandalism and harassment, as well as to investigate “antisemitic racism in leftist and anti-American colleges, universities, and schools.”
Trump’s executive order stated that “it shall be the policy and practice of the United States of America to combat antisemitism vigorously by using all appropriate and available legal tools to prosecute or remove the perpetrators who engage in unlawful antisemitic harassment or violence, and to hold them accountable for their actions.”
The White House also directs all federal agencies to review any criminal and civil powers they have that could be used to combat antisemitism within 60 days after the order. The Education Department must also report all civil rights complaints filed against K-12 schools and institutions in response to antisemitic attacks after the Hamas attacks of 7 October.
School Choice
The President’s School Choice Order directs the Education Department, in accordance with the federal funding formulas for K-12 scholarships, to provide guidance to states on how to support these programs. It also directs that the department prioritize school choice within its discretionary grant programs which are currently the subject of an extensive spending review.
Other agencies will also be involved. The secretaries of education and labor are required to submit their recommendations within 90 days on how these funds could “increase education freedom for American families and teachers.”
Trump’s order requires that the Department of Health and Human Services issue guidance as to how states can utilize block grant funds to support children and families in “educational alternatives, including private and religious-based options”.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been ordered to submit a proposal on how military families could use Defense Department funding to send their children to schools outside the agency’s school system. Doug Burgum, the nominee for Interior Secretary, would be required to submit a proposal on how families that rely on Bureau of Indian Education Schools can use federal funding to send their children to schools outside of the agency’s own school system.
In a Wednesday statement, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten stated that “this plan is a direct assault on everything parents and families cherish.” It’s a hamfisted, recycled, and probably illegal scheme that will reduce choice and deny resources for classrooms to pay for tax reductions for billionaires.
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