The Right-Wing Education Paradox: How Dismantling the Education Department Energizes Trump’s Base at Their Own Expense

Former President Donald Trump and former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos visit students of Saint Andrew Catholic School in Orlando. Photo courtesy of Shaleah Craighead.

As Donald Trump continues another campaign for the U.S. presidential election, many have speculated what another four years of the candidate mean for America. Though it is impossible to know every way former President Trump would act if elected, he has repeatedly joined several prominent Republicans in promising to gut and eventually eliminate the Department of Education (DOE). To appeal to increasing, right-wing concerns of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) education becoming popularized in K-12 public schools, the Republican Party is convinced that eliminating the federal education agency is the solution voters desire. Despite the policy’s popularity on the right, defunding the Department of Education would harm Trump’s base due to their disproportionate dependence on its resources.

The American conservative movement’s goal to abolish the DOE is not new, but the effort has gained new enthusiasm in recent years due to the strong GOP push against diversity initiatives in classrooms across the country. The policy’s ascent in right-wing discourse is in no small part Trump’s own doing. At the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump proudly exclaimed, “If federal bureaucrats are going to push this radicalism, we should abolish the Department of Education.” Trump cited “indoctrination” efforts by department bureaucrats that allegedly skew toward liberal values.

Should he prevail in 2024, Trump’s plan for the Department of Education involves  reallocating the department’s funding responsibilities to individual states, offering vouchers for children to attend private schools, and cutting funding to federal education programs, like Federal Work-Study. This agenda aligns closely with far-right legislative proposals like the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and the current House Republican plan to massively cut DOE funding. The underlying philosophy for shuttering the Department of Education is rooted in false perceptions of the department as responsible for designing and enforcing curricula supposedly based on liberal topics like LGBTQ+ identities, Critical Race Theory, and socialist ideology. Regardless of the validity of their claims, proponents of defunding the Department of Education are incentivized to continue their efforts due to the policy’s popularity within the Republican base.

The demonization of the Department of Education has become an increasingly compelling political strategy for the 2024 election. In years past, education was not one of the electorate’s most important issues. Yet, as DEI initiatives have become a more popular political subject, their presence in American schools has become a subject of scrutiny. In the 2024 cycle, polling indicates that education is now a major concern for voters. As the partisan divide widens, research indicates that 52% of Republicans have an unfavorable view of the Department of Education and believe the federal government has “too much” influence over what public schools are teaching, compared with just 20% of Democrats. Republican candidates across the country are capitalizing on this conservative pessimism toward government influence on education.

But despite the policy’s popularity with Republican voters and candidates, the proposal itself is predicated on false logic and factual inaccuracies. Indeed, one of the biggest problems with the Republican offensive against the Department of Education is that Republicans are scapegoating the federal government for issues over which the department has no dispositive control. The DOE is not responsible for authorizing curricula. That responsibility lies with state and local governments. In fact, federal law explicitly prevents any federal agency from exerting control over education curricula, selection of textbooks, administration personnel, and more. As a result, the “wokeism” that Republicans fear pollutes schools through selected readings, classes, and curricula is being falsely attributed to the federal Department of Education. The responsibility of shaping K-12 education content falls on state and local officials, not the “liberal elites” or the “bureaucratic agendas” that Republicans suggest are in control of the DOE.

Beyond demonizing the DOE, Trump and the Republican Party might end up harming some of their most loyal supporters by advocating for, and possibly implementing, such a policy. The rural, conservative states that form the foundation of Trump’s base tend to have lower income tax rates than urban, liberal states. Though Republicans believe that an anti-tax philosophy is crucial for economic growth, their tax policies often result in red states relying on blue states for resources financed through federal tax revenue, especially in rural, conservative areas. While the partisan trend is not absolute, lower-income, rural areas contribute less in tax revenue and need more federal support—more investments, infrastructure, and subsidization in specialized industries—than higher-income, well-resourced urban areas. Due to the heavy reliance Trump’s stronghold states have on federal funding across the board, the erasure of the Department of Education would disproportionately affect Trump’s base relative to other states.

The impact of education cuts on lower-income, more federally reliant areas of the country is not speculative, as some organizations have begun to estimate the consequences of the current Republican House proposal, which, among several other provisions, aims to slash 28% of the DOE’s funding. Congressional Democratic predictions forecast that more than 220,000 teachers would be removed from classrooms, and Title I programs—which are explicitly geared toward providing quality education to low-income K-12 students—would be significantly reduced if not completely abolished. Notably, the Republican proposal is subject to adjustments by the House Appropriations Committee and its constituent subcommittees, though these estimates illustrate a fraction of the potential repercussions that a complete eradication of the DOE could bring. 

Moreover, the Department of Education is responsible for providing need-based funding to hundreds of thousands of college students, and its elimination would virtually erase programs such as Federal Work-Study or Pell Grants. Currently, all five of the states that receive the most federal funding per K-12 student—Alaska, North Dakota, Montana, Kentucky, and South Dakota—are in the upper quartile of percentage of state population estimated to live in a rural area and overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump in 2020, with most of the states sitting at the top of the list abiding by the trend. Alaska and North Dakota, which receive the most federal funding per K-12 student, receive $4,370 and $3,390 of DOE funds per student, respectively. Comparatively, larger, more urban, historically Democratic states like California and New York only receive $2,750 and $2,440 in federal funds per student. Furthermore, the percentage of K-12 funding per student that is federal money in Alaska is about 21%, while California’s is only 14% and New York’s is 7%. While students at all income levels utilize federal services, those living in under-resourced states that disproportionately depend on federal funding both in general and for public education could see some of the most drastic impacts to their education.

Conservatives in favor of eliminating the Department of Education believe that entrusting states with the duties of the federal agency would be a more democratic method for facilitating the public education of America’s youth, cutting bureaucratic red tape, and eliminating alleged leftist political indoctrination in public schools. However, the very states and demographics that support this policy are positioned to bear the brunt of the negative effects of its implementation, as their students disproportionately rely on the federal programs targeted by the proposal. 

Republicans must recognize that such an extreme policy should not be discussed as though the only important considerations are political incentives and philosophical qualms. Abolishing the Department of Education would significantly impact the quality of education millions of students receive. Over 50 million children utilize federal services on an annual basis, with many receiving free or reduced-price lunch. Trump’s bold calls for DOE eradication may be a mere political calculation aimed at consolidating support among his voter base, but the implementation of such a policy is likely to have generational ramifications on the communities that most passionately support his election.

Lukas Roybal (CC ’27) is a senior editor at CPR from Los Angeles, CA. He looks forward to a career in law, with particular interests in mass incarceration, civil rights, and corporate regulation.