Adam Kinzinger implies why Trumps want the Department of Education gone
If you were confused as to why the Trump administration has such an issue with the Department of Education, Adam Kinzinger has an idea. The former Republican Representative took to X to share his thoughts.
The NEA (National Education Administration) defines the role of the Department of Education as follows: “The Department fulfills that role by enforcing civil rights laws, supporting students with disabilities, promoting equal educational opportunities, bolstering the educator workforce, and administering the Federal Student Aid programs that place college within reach of working Americans.”
These aid programs are beneficial to students and part of the issue is that Trump and other Republicans are looking at national test scores and putting the failing numbers on the Department of Education. Those test scores began failing somewhere around Trump’s first administration and got worse during the pandemic. The first time around, Trump appointed Betsy DeVos as the head of the Department of Education. Her qualifications? She sent her children to school.
So while I cannot completely blame the Trump administration for the current test scores, I don’t think they helped matters. But Trump has Republicans like William Bennett, who held the position that DeVos had under the Reagan administration, on his side. The reality is that it seems weirdly targeted. According to Kinzinger, he thinks that this dismantling of the department is to line the pockets of Elon Musk and Trump.
“Trump and Elon are closing the dept of education so they can renew their tax breaks,” Kinzinger wrote on X. Another in the comments pointed out that, if successful, this will help them in the long run. “These cuts give them headroom for next steps in budget process…” In reality, all of this is frightening to me.
Nothing good can come of this
The Department of Education helps lower income households have a chance when it comes to education. Students can be afforded grants, scholarships, and more to attend school and get the same education as their peers. Taking the programs away that allow that to happen would, frankly, do more harm than good.
But I think that Musk and Trump see the Department of Education as an obstacle. Leaving my more outlandish theories about their attacks on the department aside, it does seem like they see the amount of money the Department of Education needs and they just see dollar signs and not the importance of the department itself. Educators, students, and more rely on the services of the department.
Ultimately, it is not up to Trump or Musk. The decision about the Department of Education would ultimately fall to Congress. The President of the NEA, Becky Pringle, pointed out that those who need the Department of Education’s resources the most would be the ones who suffer under this. “Americans did not vote for, and do not support,” she said, “ending the federal government’s commitment to ensuring equal educational opportunities for every child.”
Whether it is for a tax break, as Kinzinger thinks, or because Trump wants to control what Americans are taught, it doesn’t seem like anything good can come out of his attack on the Department of Education.
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