UC High, like most American high schools, takes pride in fostering critical thinking, diversity, and a free exchange of ideas. These are values that administrators, students, and teachers all inherently exercise; however, with the election of President Donald Trump, these values and our education system as a whole are under attack. Across the country, under Trump’s leadership, radical right-wing politicians are working to dismantle the Department of Education and take complete control of what students learn. The dismantling of the Department of Education is more than bureaucratic restructuring; it is a calculated effort to suppress knowledge, rewrite history, and replace education with a form of conservative indoctrination. If this effort is successful, students at UC High for years to come and public schools nationwide will be left with fewer resources, censored curricula, and an education shaped by conservative ideology rather than truth.

   Trump and many conservatives have repeatedly vowed to abolish the Department of Education, arguing that the states should unilaterally control education. However, in doing so, public schools would be devastated, since all federal funding, oversight, and student protection would be eliminated. According to CNN, the Department of Education ensures that students, particularly those from marginalized communities or with disabilities, have equal access to quality education (cnn.com). Without the department, states could cut funding, remove protections for disabled students, minorities, and LGBTQIA+ students, all while allowing them to change their curricula to impose right-wing propaganda and ideology in the classrooms. 

   This is not a hypothetical situation either. According to the National Education Association, for decades before the department’s creation in 1979, “States routinely discriminated against marginalized students with segregation being legal, students with disabilities having virtually no access to education at all, and many states having vast disparities of school funding between wealthy and poor districts” (nea.org). The Department of Education was established to correct these wrongs by making its primary mission to ensure that all students in America, regardless of their race, gender, sexuality, or socioeconomic status, had access to quality education. Removing it would allow history to repeat itself, enabling conservative states to remove decades of progress. It is not about empowering the vulnerable or improving education, it is about stripping the vulnerable of the little protection that they have so that the elite’s status can be furthered and preserved.

   This agenda is already in motion, with over half of the employees in the Department of Education being fired, according to the Department’s official employment catalog (ed.gov). Moreover, across the country, conservative lawmakers are banning books and censoring discussions on race, gender, and social justice under the pretense of protecting students from ‘woke indoctrination.’ However, this is just a guise. It is not about shielding students – it’s about controlling them. According to PEN America, over “4,000 books were banned in US schools between 2021 and 2023” with the vast majority covering topics that challenge conservative ideology, like books about racism, LGBTQIA+ identities, and historical injustices (pen.org). If the Department of Education is dismantled, these bans will only escalate, allowing states to suppress any narratives that threaten their power and to replace them with their conservative propaganda curricula. 

   Beyond censorship, conservatives are actively working to dismantle public education by redirecting taxpayer dollars into private and religious schools that support their ideology through voucher programs. This policy is championed by figures like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and disproportionately benefits wealthy families who have the resources to receive these voucher programs, all while being at the expense of public schools, leaving them underfunded and ready to fall. According to multiple peer-reviewed studies from the National Education Association, when public school funding is cut, low-income students, students of color, and students with disabilities suffer the most, only further exacerbating the educational disparities within the country (nea.org). If Trump succeeds in killing the Department of Education, this scheme of privatization would accelerate, creating an education system where only the privileged can afford a quality learning environment.

   Just as alarming as the immediate ramifications to schools and students is how a shift in education policy will feed into broader conservative policy goals and indoctrination. A poorly educated electorate is easier to manipulate. Students who are denied a comprehensive civics education may grow up disengaged from democracy, uninformed about their rights, and more susceptible to extremist rhetoric. Prominent, scientifically proven issues like climate change could be labeled as controversial or fake, allowing schools to avoid teaching them entirely. Schools would be transformed into ideological battlegrounds where science and history are rewritten to fit a conservative political agenda. The end goal of Trump and conservatives isn’t to reshape schools but to shape an entire generation’s worldview.. 

   By controlling education, the right wing ensures its continued political dominance, using misinformation and historical revisionism to maintain power. This can and will affect schools across the nation, including our very own UC High. Imagine our school, once committed to academic freedom, shifted to a curriculum dictated by politicians, not teachers. English courses that can’t assign books about gender, race, or injustice, with a library that can’t even hold those works. History and Government classes that are required to downplay systemic racism. Even our paper, The Commander, could face censorship, where we would be forced to avoid controversial topics. Would this or any of the articles even be allowed to be published in a world where the government decides what students can and can’t read or write?

  This is not just an abstract political debate. It is an attack. An absolute sucker punch to all students, all teachers, and the future of public education. Education is meant to empower students, not chain them to an outdated, bigoted ideology. The fight for our schools is not just about budgets and policies, it’s about the future of democracy and the young themselves. If we do not push back against this agenda now, we risk raising a generation conditioned to accept ignorance as truth and submission as freedom. Like George Orwell famously wrote, two plus two is now equal to five.