TOLEDO, Ohio — President-Elect Donald Trump's incoming administration is promising to make sweeping cuts to the federal government, one of which is the Department of Education.
"We're going to shut down the Department of Education and give power back to the states, and we're going to do it fast," Trump said during a campaign rally in September.
it's all part of a plan by the new Department of Government Efficiency, headed by billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to reduce the federal debt by streamlining the government. They call the Department of Education a bloated example of bureaucracy, but local educators say losing federal funding could have a significant impact.
Trump has said on the campaign trail it's due to discussions of gender identity and sexuality in the classroom, while Ramaswamy said it's an attempt to remedy a broken system.
"School districts in the inner city, many of which are predominantly Black, actually spend more money per student than other school districts for a worse result. Suggesting even the over-funding of these poorly run schools actually rewards them for their actual bureaucratic failures," Ramaswamy said on the Lex Friedman podcast.
But Toledo Public Schools' school board president Randall Parker bristles at that idea.
"I don't just think this is about abolishing the Department of Education. I think it's an attack on equity," he said.
Parker said the funding TPS receives from the federal government, like Title I, which is meant to help educate lower-income families and IDEA, which funds education for people with disabilities, is vital and allows education to be offered to everyone. But if that funding disappears, so too may those services.
"That would put a strain on our budget locally to make sure our students are being serviced to the ability they deserve," he said.
Legal experts say it would take an act of Congress to dismantle an entire department of the federal government. But with Republican control of the House and Senate, it could be possible.