How Trump is wielding federal influence over education

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Since taking office, the Trump administration has offered a consistent message: It’s getting the feds out of the way of schools by trying to abolish the Education Department. Education Secretary Linda McMahon has vowed to “break up the federal education bureaucracy,” “return education to the states,” and “empower local leaders.” 

Yet many local and state leaders whose politics differ from Trump’s are not feeling empowered — quite the opposite. “We have seen unprecedented federal interest,” says Aaron Spence, the superintendent of Loudoun County schools, a suburban Virginia district outside Washington D.C. that has been at the center of a number of high-profile culture-war controversies.

In July of last year, the Education Department found Loudoun and a number of other Northern Virginia districts had violated Title IX by allowing transgender students to access bathrooms and locker rooms based on their gender identity. The decision was startling to Spence because Loudoun was following a 2020 appeals court ruling that required bathrooms in Virginia schools be made available to trans students. 

The federal government had reopened an issue that seemed settled. This has taken up “an inordinate and significant amount of staff time,” says Spence. Now Loudoun is threatened with a loss of federal funding as the issue plays out in court. The district wants to follow federal law but doesn’t know how, Spence says: “We would frankly love some resolution.”

Loudoun’s experience underscores Trump’s efforts to stamp out local school policies that the administration disagrees with and the challenge that’s created for local school leaders. Despite his promise to reduce federal involvement in education, D.C. influence hasn’t gone away.

In response to a request for comment on this story, a spokesperson for the Education Department pointed to a website touting the administration’s accomplishments.

The Trump administration has launched a flurry of investigations into local school systems and states. That includes probes into a California law prohibiting teachers from being required to disclose students’ gender identity to parents and Black student achievement programs in Chicago and Portland. The Education Department has also sought to restrict a gender-neutral bathroom at a Denver high school and to restore a Native American mascot at a Long Island high school. 

Some state and school leaders say they’re monitoring federal policy more closely than at any point in recent memory.

“The Trump administration will keep coming after us because that’s their values, and I understand that,” says Chris Reykdal, the superintendent of Washington state. “But it’s totally inconsistent with their idea of returning education and policy back to the states.” Trump is investigating Washington, and a number of other states, over policies to allow transgender girls to compete in female athletics.

To be clear, many voters agree with Trump’s approach to these social and cultural issues. Some observers also contend turnabout is fair play: Democrats wielded federal power in aggressive ways, so it’s more than fair for Republican presidents to do the same.

Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute, who has criticized some of Trump’s moves, says it was predictable that conservatives would use the tools pioneered by progressives. "There's a degree of schadenfreude," he says.

For their part, administration officials say they are simply following civil rights statutes. “As long as this agency exists, we need to be sure we’re enforcing the law,” the Education Department’s Lindsey Burke said at a recent Chalkbeat event. 

But the administration is going further than enforcing existing law; it is seeking to reinterpret and create new law, often in ways that maintain a powerful federal role in education. 

Consider, for instance, the interpretation of Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education. The Biden administration contended this protects transgender students, which infuriated many conservatives and was struck down in a number of courts.

Others argue that the law is silent about gender identity and that the issue should be left up to states. “Why would we at this point … jump in and try to constitutionalize a rule for the whole country while there's still uncertainty and debate?” said Trump-appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh during oral arguments in a pending case on transgender athletes.

The Trump administration is taking a third position, which is that Title IX broadly prohibits transgender students from sex-separated spaces and sports. In Virginia, it’s pushing that view even where an appeals court decision says otherwise. (The administration did notch a win this week after the Supreme Court said parents likely have a right to know if their child’s gender identity changes in school.)

Shep Melnick, a political scientist at Boston College, has criticized Democratic presidents for what he sees as too much federal meddling. But he says Trump has taken federal power to a new level. “The more you reinforce that these tools can be used in a heavy-handed partisan way, the more you’re going to make sure that happens the next time the administration changes,” he says.

Trump has sought a vast swath of changes from universities including on antisemitism, DEI, grade inflation, intellectual diversity, admissions practices, transgender accommodations, and more. The administration has aggressively, and often successfully, leveraged federal funds to push colleges to change some of their practices.

Meanwhile, Congress and Trump have enacted a large school choice tax-credit program through the “big beautiful bill.” This means the federal government will now provide subsidies to private schools and perhaps certain public schools. States don’t have to participate, but the Trump administration is seeking to limit what rules states can put in place if they do opt in.

This law could ultimately lead to more federal regulation of private schools, which is one reason some conservative groups have historically opposed federal choice measures. The Trump administration has indicated it will include few if any regulations, but future administrations may not do the same. Just ask private universities, which have grown accustomed to federal funds and are now facing unprecedented federal pressure.

The persistent, and even growing, federal power over education has been obscured by Trump’s high-profile effort to close the Education Department. This gives the impression that the federal role is shrinking. It’s true that there are fewer people doing education research and investigating civil rights claims in schools. There’s also no longer a health clinic at the Education Department building, which officials have repeatedly touted. The administration has  issued guidance on how schools can use federal funding more flexibly and recently granted modest funding flexibility to the state of Iowa. 

Yet some school officials say the overall effect of all this so far has been minimal.

“The promise was deregulation,” says Sasha Pudelski, advocacy director of AASA, the association of school superintendents. “The reality has been paperwork, guidance, and reminders.”

Reach me at [email protected].