Comprehensive Impacts of Trump’s Second Year: Education
This publication is meant to be a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of the Trump administration. There are many things that happened during the campaign that are not included. For this series covering the second year, impacts from about January 20, 2018, to January 31, 2019, are included. An introduction to this year’s series is here.
You can read the complete series on the first year of the administration here.
There are sure to be things missing, but I have done my best to record these impacts. The impacts are compiled under 20 different categories, or articles:
1. Cabinet and Other Appointments;
3. Women & Families;
4. LBGT;
6. Ethics;
7. Targeting free press/free speech/Privacy;
8. Health & Safety;
10. Education;
11. Transportation/Infrastructure/Housing;
12. Immigration;
13. Social Contract;
14. Business/Economy;
15. Budget;
16. General Governance;
17. Character;
18. Military/Defense/Police;
19. World; and
20. Some good news. Because there is always some good news.
Since this series takes a long time to write, I will publish each section as I complete it. This article is on Trump’s impacts on education.
Education
Trump has been horrible for education at all levels. He dismissed community colleges, saying that he “doesn’t even know what a community college means” or what purpose they serve. In fact, Education Secretary DeVos is trying to “rewrite the rules on higher education completely,” including reinstating accreditation agencies that have consistently failed to comply with federal quality standards, such as the agencies responsible for Corinthian Colleges and ITT Tech, two of the for-profit corporations that collapsed; eliminating the “gainful employment” rule, which imposed sanctions on career-training programs whose graduates consistently had incomes too low relative to their student debt; eliminating the rule regarding number of credit hours required to be accredited; modifying the requirement for distance education courses to have a certain amount of student-instructor contact; among other things. Robert Shireman, senior fellow at The Century Foundation and former deputy undersecretary for education in the Obama administration, described the education department under DeVos as “operating like a K Street lobbying firm.” And writer Eric Levitz called Trump’s student debt policies “mind-bogglingly corrupt.”
Amid all of the education department’s changes, Seth Frotman, the student loan watchdog who was in charge of protecting student loan borrowers from predatory lending practices resigned, saying that the Trump administration has “turned its back on young people and their financial futures” while undermining the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
· Congressional Republicans’ education bill would result in $15 BILLION less for American students over the next decade.
· Education Secretary DeVos worked to end regulations and shift some education funding from public schools to private religious schools.
· Trump’s budget proposal would limit income-based repayment programs and end student loan forgiveness programs, as well as other major cuts to student aid programs such as paying loan interest while students are still in school.
· In addition, Trump’s Department of Education argued for a new regulation that would protect student loan debt collectors, which have been accused of deceiving and abusing student borrowers and have been sued by attorneys general in a handful of states, from stringent state rules that are tougher than federal rules. DeVos issued a similar policy for student loan servicers, claiming that the “federal government can pre-empt state laws that rein in student loan servicing companies if such a law ‘undermines uniform administration of’ the student loan program.”
· This was easy for DeVos to do since she has such strong ties to the student loan debt collection industry, as well as to private education institutions. A contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars was then awarded to a debt collection company with previous financial ties to DeVos.
· In the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the student loan division was moved to the consumer information unit, which has been described as a “new attack on one of the bureau’s core statutory functions, and another attempt by Mr. Mulvaney and his team to dismantle a consumer watchdog reviled by President Trump.”
· Perhaps related, an audit of student loan servicing companies found that at least one of the largest, Navient, directed borrowers to higher cost repayment plans and did not offer better options. The Department of Education did nothing to sanction the company.
· In addition, Trump’s Education Department essentially ended investigations into widespread abuses by for-profit colleges when DeVos marginalized, re-assigned, or instructed to focus on other matters members of the special team doing the investigation.
· Related, DeVos worked to restrict student loan forgiveness rules set by President Obama that enabled student defrauded by for-profit colleges to obtain forgiveness. Borrowers must now prove intent of the colleges to defraud them.
· Trump also refused to publish the Consumer Financial Protections Bureau’s annual analysis of borrower complaints against student load companies, a report that is required to be published and has been published since investigations began in 2012.
· The Department also rescinded policies and guidelines set by President Obama that promoted the use of race in college admissions to promote campus diversity.
· DeVos also implemented new policies on campus sexual misconduct that narrow the definition of sexual harassment and only allows schools to be held accountable for misconduct if formal complaints were filed through the proper authorities and if the misconduct actually occurred on campus. The new policies also establish a higher legal standard to determine whether schools addressed complaints inadequately.
· In the ultimate slap in the face to teachers and education, DeVos retroactively rescinded teacher grants and converted them to loans with interest accrued for many years since the grant/now-loan was distributed. This was because of paperwork mistakes.
· Trump reversed school lunch nutrition guidelines set by President (and Michelle) Obama, increasing sugar and salt and reducing whole grains.
· DeVos wants states to have armed teachers to “combat school shootings.” (There’s no evidence that arming teachers creates safer schools; there is, in fact, evidence that arming teachers could create an unsafe environment with accidental shootings.) Trump moved forward with a proposal to provide gun training for teachers in schools.
· Trump’s education department is also trying to allow states to use federal funding to purchase guns for teachers.
· Yet DeVos decided that the White House’s school safety commission will not focus at all on the role of guns in gun violence in schools.
· Under the guise of “limiting espionage,” Trump tried to ban Chinese students from studying at American colleges and universities using the same exact arguments used to justify the Japanese interment camps.
· At the K-12 level, DeVos told schools that they can choose to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement on potentially undocumented students. (More horrific immigration details in the Immigration article, forthcoming.)
· Since Trump’s election, there has been a significant increase in racial harassment in schools from elementary to post-secondary. Before Trump, there was an average of 470 complaints. In 2017, there were 675.
· There has also been an increase in bullying at schools in areas that voted for Trump.
· This isn’t surprising considering that Education Secretary DeVos worked to rescind a guidance from President Obama that addresses racial bias in school discipline, removing civil rights protections for students of color, in spite of the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office report showing that all public schools regardless of socioeconomic status has a disproportionate number of students of color continue to be disciplined more often and more harshly than white students. According to the education department’s own Office of Civil Rights, Black boys are four times as likely as white kids to be disciplined for any given behavior.
· Trump tried pushing for “bible literacy” to be taught in public schools.
· At the state level, Michigan proposed new standards for its K-12 curricula that will erase all references to gay rights, Roe v Wade, and climate change and scale down references to the KKK and NAACP to just one mention.
· In Texas, public school curricula eliminated Hillary Clinton and Hellen Keller but added a major focus on “Judeo-Christian law” and Moses’s influence on the writing of the country’s founding documents. These changes impact the learning of 5.4 million students.
· Perhaps not directly related to Trump: The Koch Brothers have provided a free curriculum for teachers and school districts that lack funding (like, all of them?). This curriculum is what writer Michael Harriot described as a “whitewashing of history” and “part of an effort by the innocuously named Bill of Rights Institute to brainwash students into buying the far-right narrative on history, politics and economics.”
The next article will cover Trump’s impacts on transportation, infrastructure, and housing.
