SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Former President Donald Trump condemned the state of education in the country.
He said he wants to dismantle the Department of Education and take funding away from public schools that teach specific subjects.
He spoke about his plans in an interview on Fox News on Friday.
President Trump said, “I’m going to take control of the Department of Education and shut it down.” “I’ll close it.”
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“Here’s what bothers me about it,” Brian Kilmeade said during an interview. “If you have a liberal city like Los Angeles or San Diego, they just say, ‘We’re going to get rid of that history. We have a new history. This is America, and it was built on the backs of slaves. ‘It’s Stolen Land’ and that’s where the curriculum comes in.”
President Trump responded, “Then we won’t send money to them.”
President Trump went on to say that states like California need to be monitored and that “if you want to be cute, you don’t have to send money.”
Governor Gavin Newsom said in a post on X that President Trump is not free and unfit to be president if he takes away nearly $8 billion in education funding for California’s children.
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Funding is key, said Heather Latimer, dean of the School of Education at San Jose State University.
“If you look at the Department of Education and state funding mechanisms, a lot of it is geared towards supporting the most vulnerable children and families,” Latimer said.
Latimer worries that safeguarded class sizes, special education classes, student meals and other supports could all be eliminated without the Department of Education.
But CSU East Bay history and communications professor Nolan Higdon says no one should panic just yet.
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Higdon said the education system is complex and it’s unclear how Trump could even do what he’s suggesting.
“Local school boards have a lot of influence over what is taught in schools and how things are evaluated,” Higdon said. “The federal government can use money to encourage schools to do certain things or administer certain tests, but overall the federal government has little control over the curriculum in the classroom. do not have.”
Higdon says these are conservative ideals about overthrowing what they see as bureaucracies like the Department of Education.
But Latimer says we need to focus on improving public education for the benefit of everyone.
“The fact that public education has been used for years as a weapon to divide society is really, really problematic,” Latimer said.
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