Trump calls for ‘ending radical indoctrination in K-12’ education and prioritizing school choice–what does it mean for Black students?
Some advocates worry President Donald Trump's orders could further jeopardize readiness for Black students in the classroom.
President Donald Trump signed executive orders directing federal agencies to end “radical indoctrination” in K-12 schools and allocate significant federal funding for expanding school choice. Some advocates warn that Trump’s latest actions on education could further politicize the classroom, while others say it would divert crucial funding away from already underfunded neighborhood public schools in predominantly Black and brown neighborhoods.
The orders, which Trump signed on Wednesday, prohibits federal funding for schools that include what the administration considers to be “gender ideology and critical race theory in the classroom.” Another order directs several federal agencies, including the Department of Education, to prioritize school choice programs through discretionary grants. The agencies are also ordered to issue guidance to states about how to allocate federal dollars to districts and schools.
President Trump’s executive order would also call for the Department of Health and Human Services to issue guidance explaining how states receiving block grants for families and children can use the funds for faith-based and private institutions. The Department of Defense would also be directed to present a plan to the president on how military families can use agency funds for school choice.
President Trump promised to eliminate the Education Department and root out DEI and what he considers a “woke” agenda in public education. He vowed to use the power of the Justice Department to “pursue federal civil rights cases” against schools that “engage in racial discrimination and schools that persist in explicit, unlawful discrimination under the guise of equity.” What’s more, he promised to seek “restitution” for so-called victims of discrimination, which has been interpreted as meaning white students and families.
His latest order on rooting out so-called radical indoctrination isn’t necessarily a surprise to his critics.
“There has been a concerted effort to eradicate Black success, and we’ve seen that play out with the anti-DEI narratives,” said Ameshia Cross, communications director at EdTrust, which advocates for equity in education. “They’ve also seen that education opens opportunity, and if you’re able to erase educational opportunity, especially in the primary years, it is extremely hard to catch up.”
President Trump’s move to fund school choice, however, is a more politically divided issue. School choice are programs that allow families and students options beyond their local public schools.
According to EdChoice, Black parents are “emerging as vocal advocates for choice.” A 2023 poll of Black parents conducted by the organization and Morning Consult found that 60% believe their children have progressed in academic learning when enrolled in private school, and 59% of parents with children enrolled in charter schools said the same.
But school choice remains controversial for its racial implications as some argue it diverts funding away from public schools that are already experiencing funding gaps on the state and local level in Black, Latino and Native communities, according to EdTrust, which advocates for equity in education.
“Public schools were founded to educate everyone: the gifted, the disabled, the wheelchair-bound, the mentally challenged, the sick, the shut-in, the orphaned, the ungovernable,” U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., a member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, told theGrio.
She continued, “Charters and private schools cherry-pick, and public schools have to educate everyone—even with less funding. This decision is wrong, it is unfair, and it’s an insane ploy to destroy public education and leave it in shambles. I implore everyone: do not stop supporting our wonderful public schools.”
Cross of EdTrust said Trump’s sweeping executive order prioritizing school choice could spell doom for Black and brown communities.
“These voucher-based private schools are more segregated than the current school system. So it’s taking students and it’s killing the public school system off bit by bit,” she told theGrio. “The overwhelming majority of Black students reside in public schools. So if you erase them, where did these students go?”
While, in theory, Black families and students could benefit from school choice vouchers, Cross warns that, unlike public schools, vouchers often do not cover the full cost of tuition for students. Considering the average Black family has a median income of $54,000 a year, according to Pew Research, the ability to afford school tuition would be challenging for most households. Cross noted that most Black and brown families don’t find out that vouchers do not cover the full tuition “until they’ve already enrolled.” She added, “They end up getting the short end of the stick.”
As the United States grapples with continued school segregation despite the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education that legally ended the practice, research shows that school choice increases racial segregation.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, previously noted that data shows vouchers “negatively affect achievement.”
“Today, vouchers subsidize wealthy families who already send their kids to private and religious schools,” said Weingarten. “Privatizers fund those giveaways by defunding and destabilizing public schools.”
Cross cautioned that any diversion of funding away from public schools in favor of private institutions through school choice would cause a crumbling effect in Black and brown neighborhoods.
“The communities die. Businesses leave. Grocery stores leave. Housing value goes down. And in many cases, there’s an uptick in violence in those communities when these resources are taken away,” she explained. Cross continued, “There has to be an understanding that public schools are an anchor of the community.”
Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, said voucher programs “leave out wide swaths of students, especially Black and brown students as well as those living in rural areas with no or limited access to private schools.”
She added, “President Trump is using his Project 2025 playbook to privatize education because he knows vouchers have repeatedly been a failure in Congress.”
Pringle also noted that school vouchers have been “rejected time and again” when they have been on the ballot box. She continued, “Parents, educators, and voters know what students need—and vouchers are never the solution.”
“If we are serious about doing what is best for students, let’s reduce class sizes to give our students more one-on-one attention and increase salaries to address the teacher and staff shortages. The bottom line is vouchers have been a catastrophic failure everywhere they have been tried,” said Pringle.
Ultimately, Cross sees President Trump’s school choice crusade as a part of a larger agenda by the Republican Party to transform the education system in favor of a conservative, Christian nationalist ideology and undo “the gains that Black people have made in terms of college success.”
“When we talk about Black women being the largest degree holders in this country, the overwhelming majority of those stats are students that were funneled to the collegiate system by public schools, by neighborhood schools,” she explained.
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