When he called, last November, the ex-WWE, the largest North American wrestling league, to offer him to take the lead in the education department, Donald Trump entrusted him with the mission of his life: to fire himself. At 76, Linda McMahon complies despite her reserves: “I believe that the president is quite anxious at the idea that I am like myself!” »» On Thursday, the Republican finally signed the presidential decree dismantling this federal ministry, as he was committed, without success, from his first mandate. This decision, which seems revolutionary in France, has not, however, across the Atlantic, in a country as decentralized as the United States, the scope of it in Europe.
The Department of Education is a recent creation. It was Jimmy Carter, at the very end of his only mandate, in 1980, which instituted it to promote mainly equal opportunities between students, with a total number of employees not exceeding the 3,000 civil servants. From his victorious campaign, President Ronald Reagan had promised to get rid of this ministry, arguing that the Constitution did not mention education and believing that it was “Useless and illegal federal bureaucratic intrusion in local affairs”. Because of national education proper, there is not in the United States. In the short term, American children will probably only see very few changes in their daily lives. Schools are mainly managed by states and local authorities, whose annual budgets have already been set.
It is not possible to say that the American education system is not popular with the general public
Today, the Department of Education employs around 4,400 people and manages a budget of 268 billion. It is above all the 8 million students who contracted loans from the federal loans dependent on Washington which are still in uncertainty. The White House ensures that these loans will still be managed by the federal state. “They will be kept in their entirety and redistributed to various other agencies and departments which will take great care”promised Trump.
Beyond the budgetary savings made, a real marotte of the new administration, it is mainly for Trump to put, as he never ceased to repeat during his campaign, “A stop at the abuse of taxpayers’ money to endocate youth”. In the viewfinder: wokism and the end of teaching gender theory.
It is not possible to say that the American education system is not popular with the general public. Last February, a Gallup survey showed that only 24 % of Americans are satisfied with the education system against 37 % in January 2017. Delays for learning reading, spelling and calculation: all signals are red.
Is this the real end of this ministry? Concretely, he is led to become an empty shell. Half of its employees should be dismissed this year. And yet he had to continue to work. Trump does not ignore that he needs the approval of the congress to remove this department, under article 2 of the Constitution. This measure requires 60 votes to be adopted in the Senate, while only 53 Republicans sit there. He will have to hope for a considerable success at the midterms in November 2026 to complete his promise. Or compose with a ghost administration.
