One of the very first Executive Orders passed by Trump on his first day was an order titled, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”. This order made it the official policy of the United States government that there are only two sexes, male and female, and mandated all federal agencies only use the terms “sex” and not “gender”.

The executive order also rescinded a Biden-era policy that mandated a “non-binary” option on civil rights data collected from schools and abandoned the redefinition of “sex” to “sexual orientation and gender identity”.

This was only one of the first signs of his administration’s opposition to transgender identity and trans students. In another executive order nine days later, Trump ordered the Secretary of Education to work with the Attorney General to eliminate federal funding for schools “indoctrinating” students on gender identity.

The order even considers teachers using a student’s preferred pronouns as a form of indoctrination, meaning a school that respects a student’s right to express themselves may lose its funding.

This marks an unprecedented and likely illegal attempt to interfere in the education curriculum, which Trump vehemently opposed during the election. It is against the law in the US for the Department of Education to control curriculums, which are set by the states.

On Jan. 29, President Trump issued an executive order titled, “Expanding Educational Freedom and Opportunity for Families”, which supports universal school choice. Universal school choice is a term that refers to policies that will allow parents to use taxpayer money to pay for private schooling, that money comes in the form of vouchers.

The Republican Platform for the 2024 election explicitly called for universal school choice, and in many Republican states, such programs already exist on a state level.

The order in general calls for the Secretary of Education to develop a plan to use federal funds to distribute school vouchers to parents, as well as using existing grant programs to achieve this.

The executive order also specifically mentioned “faith-based” schools. The number one reason parents use vouchers today is to move their children from public education into private religious schools, literally using tax dollars to promote religion. This violates the fundamental principle of separation of church and state.

School vouchers also take money away from public schools, many of which are already struggling, and give them to well-funded private schools. Here in Indiana, most of the voucher students were from suburban middle-class families, while less than 1% were from schools considered to be failing.

At the same time there is no evidence to suggest that universal school choice even improves academic performance overall. In fact, in some cases, they perform even worse. Multiple studies performed in Louisiana found students attending private schools consistently performed significantly worse in math, reading, science, and social studies.

One of the most controversial aspects of modern education today is the policy of critical race theory. Critical race theory is a policy developed in the late 70s based on the idea that race is a social construct and that systemic racism exists in the legal system and political institutions.

Throughout the 2024 election season, Trump decried CRT and on the Republican platform stated they would defund any schools “indoctrinating” children with CRT.

On Jan. 29, Trump signed an executive order titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling”, effectively banning critical race theory in schools that receive federal funding.

Despite claims by Republican and conservative outlets, critical race theory does not claim that all white people are racist but instead that racism is institutionalized in everyday life, and that people can, whether consciously or subconsciously, perform actions that can nonetheless fuel racism.

CRT focuses on the outcome of an individual, equity, compared to the starting point of an individual, or equality. So it therefore brings to light that although people may have the same starting point, equality under the law, institutionalized racism can often result in a person falling behind a peer leading to a lesser outcome.

In any case, however, CRT is a vague concept and it has many different interpretations especially when it comes to teaching, and it is unclear what exactly a “ban” on CRT would even mean, and is constitutionally ambiguous. According to the Heritage Foundation, the organization behind Project 2025, they attribute Black Lives Matter, diversity training, and even LGBTQ Clubs in schools to CRT.

One of the most alarming aspects of the Trump administration’s education policies so far remains the weakening of gender discrimination and sexual assault rules.

On Jan. 31, the Trump administration in a note to education institutions stated that they were rolling back Title IX changes made by the Biden Administration. The changes made by Biden added discrimination protections based on gender identity and sexual orientation and strengthened sexual assault prosecutions on campuses.

Trump reverted those changes back to his original 2020 policies, removing those protections added by Biden. The changes focused on sexual assaults added stronger due process protections for those alleged to have sexually assaulted someone, however in practice will make it more difficult for perpetrators of sexual assault to face punishment.

The administration stated that Biden’s changes were a “failed attempt” and that is constituted an unlawful abuse of power.

The combined student loan debt in the United States is over $1.7 trillion a more than 340% increase since 2006, with more than 42 million student borrowers. The student loan crisis is a major issue facing America and only continues to grow.

The Biden Administration attempted to remedy much of the weight of student loans for Americans, proposing to cancel up to $20,000 per borrower, however, this plan was struck down by the Supreme Court.

Despite the setbacks his administration continued to cancel student debt, in total his administration forgave around $190 billion for over 5 million Americans, while a new broad forgiveness plan was created, called Plan C. However, Harris’s defeat in the election destroyed any chance of a new broad forgiveness plan, and Plan C was ultimately withdrawn.

Trump wasted little time in reversing Biden’s policies, in early February the Department of Education blocked access to any new applicants for all income-driven repayment plans throwing the entire student loan repayment system into chaos, as millions are now unable to enroll or switch programs.

This included the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2007. The program allows public servants to repay their federal student loan debt by working full-time in the government.

The Trump Administration is now facing a lawsuit for blocking access to such programs which are authorized by law.

In 2020, President Trump established an advisory commission through executive order called the 1776 Commission. Its goal was to write a report on how to increase “patriotic education” through a federal nationalist curriculum and end what Trump called a “radicalized view” of American history which “vilified” the Founding Fathers and America.

The Commission was highly controversial at it’s time, including conservative activists and politicians and including no actual experts in the field of history.

The final report was highly condemned by historians and experts for including factual inaccuracies and partisanship, often portraying the Republican Party in a good light. The report criticized progressivism, the civil rights movement, feminist movements, and universities, promoting little more than conservative propaganda.

On President Biden’s first day in office, he dissolved the commission and deleted its report from the White House website. However, Trump on January 29th reinstated the commission to promote patriotic education once again.

On Wednesday, it was reported that President Trump will officially sign a long-anticipated executive order to shut down the Department of Education, a day later on Thursday trump signed that executive order.  This comes only a week after the department began mass layoffs eliminating around 50% of its workforce.

Trump signed the order along with Republican governors and state education officials in a ceremony at the White House, the order directed the newly appointed Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the states.”

The Department of Education does not set education policy, doesn’t hire teachers or local staff and doesn’t mandate any curriculums. It primarily conducts research into the state of education, provides aid and programs to both schools and students and oversees civil rights cases involving students.

The executive order will almost certainly face legal challenges, a group of Democratic state attorney generals have filed a lawsuit seeking to block Trump from shutting down the Education Department and end its layoffs.

Shutting down the department has been a key aspect of Trump’s education platform, and a Republican policy for decades now since the creation of the Department in 1979 by Congress. The federal government provides for around 14% of public school budgets, mostly in the form of programs for vulnerable students. Colleges and universities also rely heavily on federal funding.

The order specified that programs and benefits provided by the Department of Education will be continued, however, it is unclear exactly which programs will remain and the order will still likely disrupt tens of billions of dollars in aid and tuition assistance.

Despite any executive order, however, Trump cannot officially dissolve the Department of Education without an act of Congress, but such an act remains unpopular even with some Republicans. In 2023 60 House Republicans join Democrats in voting down an amendment to close the agency.