A person stops to watch a screen displaying the U.S. presidential debate in September between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump in Washington.
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Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have contrasting visions of schools and the federal government’s role in funding and shaping them. Today, voters will pick a president and his or her educational agenda.
Based on what he said during the campaign, Trump would pursue radical changes from the conservative playbook, such as abolishing the Department of Education, withholding federal funding from states like California that protect transgender students, stripping the department’s Office of Civil Rights of defenders of civil rights, and elevating the case for school vouchers and programs of choice.
Harris also has priorities that would affect the lives of children, including increasing the child tax credit by thousands of dollars and making universal prekindergarten a national priority. During the vice presidential debate, candidates Tim Walz and J.D. Vance found common ground on more federal support for early childhood. Harris wants to expand the federal child tax credit, now $2,000, to $6,000. Vance supports raising it to $5,000, paid for by raising tariffs on all imported goods.
Harris is a traditionalist who has vowed to find common ground and negotiate with Republicans. Trump is a disrupter who is confident the Supreme Court won’t stand in his way. Much of his rhetoric could prove to be bluster that a narrowly divided Congress will ignore. Harris’ priorities may face the same fate.
Here are some examples of policies that, depending on who wins the presidency, could change the nation’s educational system.
Trump policies could mean big changes
Abolishing the federal Department of Education has been an idea circulating among Republicans off and on since its creation 45 years ago during the Carter administration. Trump has revived the idea of targeting the department, which he calls a waste of money and an intrusion on states’ authority.
But only Congress can abolish what it established, and it would take Republican control of the House, and perhaps the elimination of the filibuster in the Senate, for this to happen. Then Congress would have to decide how to handle, up until now, untouchable funding streams for Title I and special education.
A less drastic option would be to transfer the department’s functions to the Labor Department or, for Pell Grants and federal higher education aid, to the Treasury Department. But if that happens, there probably wouldn’t be “much impact beyond the Beltway,” observed conservative writer Rick Hess.
School choice
Trump has pledged to offer “universal school choice” through some form of taxpayer support that could underwrite private school tuition, which also was a major goal of his first administration.
It would not find fertile ground in California. “Twice in the last three decades, California voters have decisively rejected taxpayer-funded voucher plans — the last time in 2020 — and no one has ventured to put a similar initiative on the ballot since. Any such plan would also run into resistance from the state Legislature as well as teachers’ unions, which would see a voucher plan as a threat to public schools.
It is possible, however, that if Republicans gained control of Congress, they could pass one or more variations of a voucher plan — like setting up education savings accounts that for-profit companies could donate funds to in return for tax credits. These funds could then be awarded in the form of scholarships to eligible students and families. If — and it is a big if — the federal government were to set up a program like this, California might have no choice but to allow families to take advantage of it.
“Twice in the last three decades California voters have decisively rejected taxpayer-funded voucher plans –the last time in 2020 — and no one has ventured to put a similar initiative on the ballot since.
Immigration
A Trump win could cause widespread fear for many California children. An estimated 1 million California children — about 1 in 10 — have an undocumented immigrant parent. About 165,000 California students are recent immigrants themselves.
Trump has pledged to deport undocumented immigrants en masse, and has said immigrant children who do not speak English are a burden to public schools, an idea that aligns with a plan from the conservative Heritage Foundation to end the right to public education for undocumented children.
Curriculum
Trump wants to have more say about what students are taught in school. He has said they should be taught reading, writing and math, and not about gender, sex and race. He has threatened to stop funding schools that teach students about topics like slavery or systemic racism.
In California, the State Board of Education sets policy regarding academic standards, curriculum, instructional materials and assessments. Local school districts decide how they will implement curriculum requirements. It isn’t clear whether Trump would be able to make changes at the federal level that would impact the state’s curriculum, including new ethnic study graduation requirements that will start with the graduating class of 2029-30.
Vaccination
Trump has vowed to cut federal funding to schools that mandate vaccinations, a move that runs counter to California’s requirement that all children have 10 vaccinations against disease to attend school. It is unlikely that Trump could simply strip schools of federal funding and, because there is no federal mandate to vaccinate students, stopping them from doing so will almost certainly require congressional action.
Just days before the election, Trump heightened attention to the issue when he told reporters that he will find a place in his administration for campaign adviser Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic, and would consider banning some vaccinations.
Water fluoridation
In a late campaign development, Trump said, if elected, he would act on Kennedy’s proposal to remove fluoride from America’s drinking water, although it’s unclear how that would be accomplished.
Fluoride, which helps children grow strong teeth, is also commonly present in toothpaste and mouthwash. Its use across the country and globe, starting in the 1950s, was considered one of the great public health achievements of the 20th century. Studies have shown that poor oral health is linked to poorer academic outcomes.
Kennedy, a former environmental lawyer, has long railed against man-made chemicals and claimed some could be making children gay or transgender. Numerous studies have found that the level of fluoride in drinking water is safe.
Cultural attacks
Conservative groups leveraged parental angst over Covid-19 school closures and masking policies to ignite a “parents’ rights” movement that has since pushed back against educational policies on gender identity and racial equity, which Trump has vowed to eliminate. Some school board meetings have been so incendiary that school districts have had to pay for additional security to keep unruly audiences in order. Some think a Trump victory will further embolden far-right conservative activists.
“I think that a Trump victory will lead some on the right to take the message that these sorts of cultural attacks that have been playing out across the United States, and across California in the last couple of years, are an effective strategy for mobilizing the base and for energizing an electorate,” John Rogers, director of UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education and Access, told EdSource.
Higher education
In response to pro-Palestinian sentiment on some college campuses in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, the Trump campaign in November 2023 proposed “taxing, fining, and suing excessively large private university endowments” and using the money to establish a free, online educational institution where “there will be no wokeness or jihadism allowed.” Politico reported that plans for the new institution — to be called the American Academy — called for giving students credit for previous coursework and granting credentials students could use to seek jobs with the federal government and its contractors.
Harris to focus on early childhood, paid leave
Harris has said she would make child care more affordable for American families by starting a program that limits a family‘s cost to 7% of their income. It is unclear how this program would be funded.
Harris also said she would support paid family leave for workers who need to care for newborns or ill family members. So far, attempts to pass paid family leave in Congress have been unsuccessful, and the extent to which a Harris administration would be able to expand child care programs will depend heavily on the makeup of Congress.
Even though the Senate almost certainly will be in Republican hands, child care and preschool is one issue that has significant bipartisan support, so this is one area where Harris could make headway.
Student loan forgiveness
Harris’ platform notes that she plans to “continue working to end the unreasonable burden of student loan debt,” though it doesn’t offer specifics, and she has said little else on the campaign trail. Any significant action hinges on the Democrats winning back control of Congress — an unlikely outcome. That’s because President Joe Biden’s most sweeping actions on student loan forgiveness programs have been blocked by the courts. In 2022, for example, the Supreme Court blocked his plan to cancel more than $400 billion in loans, ruling he didn’t have the authority to cancel that debt. However, the Biden administration was able to have millions of loans forgiven through executive action, and Harris would no doubt seek ways to continue to do that.
Workforce development
Harris has previously promised that, if elected, her administration would remove degree requirements for some careers in the federal government. In remarks last week, she took that commitment a step further, pledging to “eliminate unnecessary degree requirements for federal jobs” through an executive order signed on the first day of her presidency, according to Politico.
For-profit colleges
During her campaign, Harris has repeatedly referred to her record while attorney general of California when she filed a lawsuit against the California-based Corinthian Colleges for false advertising and deceptive marketing practices, especially those targeting low-income students.
The Trump administration reversed Obama-era policies implementing greater regulation of for-profit colleges, and some of these were in turn reversed by the Biden administration. Last year, it introduced regulations intended to ensure that students are prepared by these colleges for “gainful employment.” But the task of regulating for-profit colleges is far from complete, and it is likely that a Harris administration would attempt to extend the efforts of her Democratic predecessors in the White House.
Areas of agreement?
Notwithstanding the candidates’ diametric differences on many issues, there may be opportunities for compromise, whoever wins.
Both parties want more support for career and technical education. Trump’s platform says he favors funding preferences for schools that provide internships and summer jobs aligned to future careers.
Both Harris and Trump emphasized support for historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), which supply 20% of the nation’s Black college graduates. In 2020, Trump reauthorized $225 million in funding for minority-serving institutions, including $85 million in recurring funds for HBCUs. The Biden-Harris administration upped the ante with $17.3 billion during the past four years, including $1.3 billion announced in September.
During the vice presidential debate, candidates Tim Walz and J.D. Vance found common ground on more federal support for early childhood. Harris wants to expand the federal child tax credit, now $2,000, to $6,000. Vance supports raising it to $5,000, paid for by raising tariffs on all imported goods.
