Oklahoma school boss prepares for a post-U.S. Education Department era that empowers parents

With President-elect Donald Trump getting another term next year, many school choice activists, including Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters, are hopeful that the Department of Education will be abolished and education policy will return to the states.

Trump has come out and said that he wanted the Department of Education, however Republicans have been throwing around that idea since the 1980s and it hasn't been able to get done. 

"We're going to end education coming out of Washington, D.C.," Trump said in a policy video. "We're going to close up all those buildings all over the place.......we're going to send it all back to the states."

The Department of Education was founded in October 1979 under Democratic President Jimmy Carter. Many Republicans have argued that the department has done more damage to education than benefited it. 

"President Trump is going to deliver on this incredibly bold reform agenda that he's laid out....it's the best education agenda the country has ever seen," Walters said on the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show. "What we've seen is every educational statistic has gotten worse since Jimmy Carter brought us the Department of Education."

Walters discussed how many American families don't trust the Department of Education because of the overreach that happened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Department of Education expanded the definition of sex discrimination to include gender identity and pregnancy earlier this year and rolled back Trump-era rules on student sexual misconduct cases. The finalization of the new rules came after months of delays and critics have already threatened legal challenges.

The department said public schools in states that opposed these changes would need to comply with the new regulations if they want to continue receiving federal funding.

"Those are the threats we face on a daily basis from the Federal Department of Education to push woke ideology," Walters said. "We fought back. We didn't comply. I was the first state to sue them here in Oklahoma."

One of Trump's plans for education is to empower homeschool families to be able to use the 529 Education Savings Accounts to spend up to $10,000 a year tax free on tuition for grades K-12.

"So to support the growing homeschool movement, in my next term, I will immediately fight to allow homeschool parents the same incredible benefit--$10,000 a year per child, completely tax free to spend on costs associated with homeschool education," Trump said in a policy video.

Walters applauded Trump for being a "champion" for families being in charge of their children's education

"The families should be directing educational choices [and] educational decision making for their children......that's what every state should be doing," he said.

School choice activist Erika Donalds said that Trump's presidency is great for parents who have been fighting bureaucracy for years, striving to bring education to a local level.

"We know it's going to take a lot of work," she said. "It's going to take cooperation from Congress. Thankfully, we now have both chambers in control by Republicans so we can start that dismantling right away. I think it's going to be at the top of the list for Elon and Vivek as they launch the DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency)."

She said that the government monopoly on education needs to be broken. 

"The solution is a free market in education," Donalds said. "We need to break the government monopoly. It's not public schools necessarily that are the problem. It's the monopoly that they enjoy and therefore they do not have to be as responsive to parents who are the consumers, and make sure that they are accountable for student performance."

She explained that the Department of Education at the federal level really only makes up seven percent of the budgets in education across the country.

"The vast majority of education policy and accountability takes place at the state and local level," Donalds said. "So nothing is going to happen when we eliminate this department except the elimination of that waste and the corresponding compliance that's taking place at the state level."