The promises from President-elect Donald Trump to kill off the U.S. Department of Education came early and often during his campaign.
“We spend more money per pupil than any other country by far, and yet we’re at the bottom of the list,” Trump said at a September rally. “I’m going to close the Department of Education and move education back to the states, and we’re going to do it fast.”
Now that he's back in charge, can he actually shut down the sprawling federal agency overseeing the education of some 50 million American kids?
Arne Duncan served as the Secretary of Education under President Barack Obama. He told KNX News’ daily political show Countdown 2024 that Trump’s promise to do away with the department was “right up there with him building the wall and getting Mexico to pay for it.”
Listen here:
“He will not close the Department of Education,” he said. “99% of what he says, he just says, and just keeps moving on to the next thing. He’s not that interested.”
Duncan said the Department of Education is overwhelmingly popular with the American public, and shutting it down would be difficult, both logistically and politically.
“There are over 7.5 million children with disabilities in this country, with special needs, and a huge amount of funding for those children comes from the U.S. Department of Education,” he said. “Many, many parents who voted for Trump have children with disabilities, and you don't want to mess with those children. That'd be a grave, grave political mistake.”
He said education should be a nonpartisan issue, and that politicizing it “hurts kids, hurts the country, and ultimately is gonna come back to bite them if they continue down this path.”
Want to get caught up on what's happening in SoCal every weekday afternoon? Click to follow The L.A. Local wherever you get podcasts.
Listen to the full episode above to hear from political science professor Katherine Cramer about what Trump’s comeback says about the country, and catch new episodes of Countdown 2024 every weekday at 2:30 p.m.
Follow KNX News 97.1 FM
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok
