What’s the Trump administration’s theory of action for improving schools?

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At a recent Chalkbeat event, Education Department official Lindsey Burke toggled between two different messages. 

On the one hand, she offered sharp criticism of the agency, suggesting it was to blame for disappointing test scores. On the other hand, she repeatedly reassured anxious teachers and parents that little would change as the department’s programs are moved elsewhere.

The Education Department is “a bureaucratic boondoggle that has not led to the types of outcomes that we would all have hoped to have seen over the past 45-plus years,” said Burke, a Trump political appointee and author of the education chapter of Project 2025, a conservative policy blueprint.

Yet she also emphasized continuity. Various “civil rights protections” would “remain in full force,” she said. There is “no world” in which funding for students with disabilities would be cut, Burke continued. She gave no indication the department would try to do away with annual testing, one of the most significant federal requirements. She also said there weren’t plans to turn funding for students with disabilities into a cash stipend for parents or to phase out Title I funding for high-poverty schools. Both were concepts promoted in the Project 2025 chapter Burke wrote.

The expertise of Education Department staffers would be preserved, too. “Instead of sitting here in their chair at 400 Maryland Avenue [the Education Department building], they're sitting in a chair over at the Department of Labor, 0.5 miles away,” she said.

It was a striking juxtaposition and it reflects the administration’s confusing theory of change. Officials like Burke are promising to get the feds out of the way, while preserving federal rules and programs. That’s not likely to have much effect on how schools operate, much less meaningfully change learning outcomes.

"I support efforts to empower states, but simply reshuffling office space in D.C. is not going to achieve that goal," says Tom Kane, a professor at Harvard University who has tracked learning loss and recovery. 

Burke and others in the administration have argued that disappointing test scores show the Education Department has failed. During the event, I pointed out that until recently, scores had been going up, making it hard to pin the blame on the federal department. Yet Burke suggested that some federal laws, like No Child Left Behind, may have contributed to those earlier gains. “All of that happened while the department was around,” she said. But perhaps that could have “happened even better in more appropriate federal agencies.” 

How will shifting agencies improve student outcomes? Bringing in the “experts at the Department of Labor who think about workforce preparation every single day [will] better integrate these programs,” Burke said. This reflects a surprising faith in the power of federal bureaucrats to effect change.

Note the distinction between eliminating the Education Department and reducing federal involvement in schools. Those two things are often treated as interchangeable, but they’re not.

Whatever you think of Project 2025, it had a clear theory of action on education: The problem facing American schools is excessive federal meddling. To address this, Burke in her chapter proposed liquidating the Education Department and its various rules and programs.

Now, though, Burke says the administration only wants to do the first half of this. The administration’s budget request maintains funding for the two largest K-12 programs, Title I and the Individual with Disabilities Education Act. (The budget is seeking to axe a number of smaller programs, which would amount to a non-trivial cut in funding.) Although critics of the administration often claim it’s following Project 2025, that’s not exactly what’s happening here.

This somewhat muddled set of policies may reflect Trump’s fractious coalition, which includes both small-government conservatives in D.C. think tanks and rural parents whose children’s schools rely on federal funding. It also reflects Trump’s attraction to symbolism and spectacle. His effort to eliminate the department has drawn a great deal of attention, even though the change within schools is likely to be much smaller than either critics or supporters believe.

The administration recently issued a high-profile announcement that it will be waiving certain federal education requirements for the state of Iowa. Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Gov. Kim Reynolds touted this as an example of returning education to the states. Again, though, the practical effect is likely to be modest. Officials say the waiver will free up some $2 million annually, roughly 0.03% of Iowa schools’ budget.

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