Mrs. Frazzled continues to be a social media voice for beleaguered educators. In this recent post, she analyzes the work of the current Department of Education to take down public schools.
While it’s easy to accuse the administration of incompetence or disorganization, no one can say their plan is incoherent. In fact, it’s very connected and cohesive…and it is working. But before we dive into that, spoiler alert: organizations like Education Law Center (ELC), which this Substack is in partnership with, are fighting back. Support them! Follow ELC on their social media platforms (@edlawcenter), join the ELC mailing list, and sign up for news alerts from their Public Funds Public Schools (PFPS) campaign to stay in the loop on education policy updates that matter.
What is happening to public education right now is the result of a very long effort that goes back to the creation of the modern U.S. Department of Education. The civil rights enforcement collapse, the gutting of the Department of Education, and the federal voucher program disguised as a tax policy and hidden in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” are all connected moves to weaken the rules, hollow out the agency that enforces them, and redirect the money to a private system that never had to follow any rules in the first place.
Once you see it, every individual headline starts to make sense.
Public education in this country is held together by three things: A set of laws, including education policy laws that provide funding and support for disadvantaged students and hold schools accountable for improving student achievement, and civil rights laws that say schools getting federal money cannot discriminate based on race, national origin, sex, disability, or age. An agency with the staff, regional offices, and legal authority to enforce said laws and to make sure federal education dollars reach the kids they are supposed to. And third, the widely-held belief that public dollars belong in public schools which are accountable to elected school boards, open to every child, and obligated by law to serve each of them.
The Trump administration is going after all three at once. And the goal is to fundamentally change what “public education” means in the United States.