Education Policy & School Curriculum

Updated July 2026 23 primary sources

Federal education policy is being reshaped on multiple fronts at once, from agency cuts to school choice to book bans.

Trump moved to wind down the Department of Education — His March 2025 executive order directed Secretary Linda McMahon to dismantle the agency, and in July 2025 the Supreme Court allowed mass layoffs and transfers of department functions to proceed while litigation continues, even though only Congress can formally abolish it (Al Jazeera).
A new federal tax-credit scholarship program is rolling out via state opt-in — The 2025 "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" lets individuals claim a dollar-for-dollar credit of up to $1,700 for scholarship-organization donations starting in 2027, and by mid-2026, 28 governors — including Democrats like New York's Kathy Hochul — had opted in or signaled intent to (EdWeek, EdWeek).
Book bans and curriculum fights keep escalating at the state level — PEN America documented 6,870 school book bans in the 2024–2025 school year across 23 states (nearly 23,000 since 2021), alongside continued critical-race-theory and "parental rights" battles, including new disclosure and opt-out statutes in states like New Hampshire (PEN America, Boston Globe).
School choice and homeschooling are both expanding rapidly — School choice enrollment has surged past 1.5 million students nationwide as more states adopt universal education savings accounts, while homeschooling has kept growing well above pre-pandemic rates (EdChoice).

The Two Positions

Where each side stands

Every point below is sourced to a real organization, official, or news report — click through to read it in full context.

Conservative

The Department of Education is a failed federal bureaucracy that should be dismantled

Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts called it "a mistake" since its founding, arguing it has funneled billions into a system where achievement has stagnated, and praised Trump's executive order as fulfilling a "longstanding conservative goal" of returning authority to states and parents (Heritage Foundation).

Federal education spending has doubled with no results, proving centralized control doesn't work

Heritage's Lindsey Burke noted that inflation-adjusted federal education spending has more than doubled since the department's 1980 creation while learning outcomes stayed flat and achievement gaps persisted, making the case that "federal bureaucrats' central planning cannot compare to the expertise that parents have" (Heritage Foundation).

School choice, including the new federal tax-credit scholarship, empowers parents and enjoys broad bipartisan support

The American Federation for Children's September 2025 national poll found 58% of voters favor the federal tax-credit scholarship, including majorities of Republicans (63%), independents (58%), and Democrats (53%), with even stronger support among parents (66–67%) (American Federation for Children).

Universal school choice is delivering real results and expanding rapidly

EdChoice's 2026 ABCs of School Choice reports more than 1.5 million students now participate in choice programs across 34 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico, with Arizona and Florida serving as models after decades of program growth (EdChoice).

Parents, not school administrators or federal officials, should control what children are taught and exposed to

Moms for Liberty and allied parental-rights advocates backed the Supreme Court's June 2025 ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor upholding parents' right to opt children out of instruction that conflicts with their religious beliefs, and have pushed "parental bill of rights" legislation nationwide (Moms for Liberty).

Curriculum content restrictions like anti-CRT laws and "anti-woke" measures protect students from ideological indoctrination

Florida's DeSantis-backed Stop WOKE Act, part of a broader wave of state legislation restricting how race and gender concepts are taught, reflects conservative arguments that schools should not "espouse" or "compel" belief in concepts tied to systemic racism or privilege, even as courts have split on its constitutionality (CNBC).

Progressive

Dismantling the Department of Education harms the most vulnerable students

NEA President Becky Pringle said gutting the department "will send class sizes soaring, cut job training programs, make higher education more expensive... and gut student civil rights protections," warning that low-income students and those with disabilities would bear the brunt of cuts (NEA).

The administration has stripped civil-rights enforcement, including Title IX protections, from federal oversight

NEA reported that the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights failed to resolve a single K-12 sexual harassment or assault case last year and then rescinded prior Title IX resolution agreements, which Pringle called an action that "guts long-standing... protections" for students (NEA).

The new federal voucher program threatens to drain up to $50 billion a year from public schools

In a joint open letter, NEA and AFT presidents Becky Pringle and Randi Weingarten urged Democratic governors to reject the federal tax-credit scholarship, warning it could shrink public-school enrollment and per-pupil revenue while forcing states to cover funding gaps for Title I and IDEA services (NEA/AFT letter via NEAToday).

Book bans have become normalized and disproportionately target marginalized voices

PEN America's 2025 report "Banned in the USA" found 6,870 book bans in the 2024–2025 school year, with 44% of banned titles featuring characters or people of color and rising restrictions on LGBTQ+ themed and nonfiction works, calling it a "disturbing normalization" of censorship (PEN America).

Cuts to research, data, and community-school grants are eliminating resources families rely on

NEA documented that the administration revoked nearly $900 million in education research contracts and discontinued dozens of Full-Service Community Schools grants worth roughly $61 million due in January 2026 alone, jeopardizing services for low-income communities (NEA, NEA Foundation).

Voucher expansion contradicts the Democratic Party's platform and the preferences of voters who elected Democratic governors

The AFT/NEA letter argued that opting into the federal voucher program "would violate both the Democratic National Committee's platform and the preferences of the electorate," referencing the 2024 DNC platform's explicit opposition to vouchers and tuition tax credits (Wall Street Journal).

Common Ground

Key facts both sides cite

Data and polling that inform the debate — both camps draw on these figures, even when they read them differently.

Book ban volume — PEN America documented 6,870 instances of school book bans in the 2024–2025 school year across 23 states and 87 districts, and nearly 23,000 cumulative bans since 2021, with Florida and Texas leading in total bans (PEN America).

School choice enrollment — More than 1.5 million students now participate in K-12 private school choice programs (ESAs, vouchers, and tax-credit scholarships) across 34 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico as of the 2025–2026 school year, roughly double the 2022 figure (EdChoice).

Public satisfaction with K-12 education — Gallup's August 2025 poll found a record-low 35% of Americans satisfied with the quality of K-12 education, an eight-point drop from the previous year, even as most Americans (66% in the 2025 PDK Poll) oppose eliminating the federal Department of Education (Gallup, PDK Poll).

Homeschool growth — An estimated 3.3–3.4 million U.S. children were homeschooled in 2025–2026 — roughly 6–7% of school-age children, nearly double the pre-pandemic share — with homeschool enrollment growing at about three times the pre-pandemic annual rate, according to Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy analysis (Johns Hopkins-sourced report).

Sources

Every citation on this page

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