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The orders seek to encourage “patriotic education” and restrict discussions about racism and gender by threatening to withdraw federal funding. But schools are often resistant to change.
Jan. 30, 2025, 5:02 a.m. ET
With a series of executive orders, President Trump has demonstrated that he has the appetite for an audacious fight to remake public education in the image of his anti-woke, populist political movement.
But in a country unique among nations for its hyperlocal control of schools, the effort is likely to run into legal, logistical and funding trouble as it tests the limits of federal power over K-12 education.
On Wednesday evening, Mr. Trump signed two executive orders. One was a 2,400-word behemoth focused mainly on race, gender and American history. It seeks to prevent schools from recognizing transgender identities or teaching about concepts such as structural racism, “white privilege” and “unconscious bias,” by threatening their federal funding.
The order also promotes “patriotic” education that depicts the American founding as “unifying, inspiring and ennobling” while explaining how the United States “has admirably grown closer to its noble principles throughout its history.”
The second order directs a swath of federal agencies to look for ways to expand access to private school vouchers.
Both orders echo energetic conservative lawmaking in the states. Over the past five years, the number of children using taxpayer dollars for private education or home-schooling costs has doubled, to one million. More than 20 states have restricted how race, gender and American history can be discussed in schools. States and school boards have banned thousands of books.
