We’re witnessing a revolution in education and finally getting it right

Some recent headlines suggest that America may be getting education back on track after decades of dysfunction and a collapse in student achievement.

First came the news that the US Department of Education would transfer its $1.7 trillion student loan portfolio to the Treasury Department. Then came the announcement that the department would be downsizing from its current location, which is currently 70% vacant, to a smaller space nearby. The move will not only save taxpayers about $4.8 million a year, but will also help make it harder for future administrations to revert to the old, oversized bureaucracy.

These two actions are the latest in a series of steps the Trump administration has taken to fulfill the president’s promise to shut down the Department of Education before he leaves office.

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT’S POWER WAS TURNED OFF IN THE LATEST REMOVAL OF THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

The cartel of special interest groups that run America’s public education system screamed in outrage. The American people are not like that.

Student loan borrowers don’t care which institution manages their loan, as long as borrowers can get their questions answered and the institution keeps surprises to a minimum. President Trump’s downsizing of the Department of Education last year also went unnoticed as a blip on the public’s radar.

Why would it be? The ministry does not employ any teachers, does not run schools, and does not determine a national curriculum (thank goodness). It was created by Jimmy Carter for partisan purposes against teachers unions. In the fifty years since, the multi-trillion-dollar education system the Department ostensibly oversees has become a national embarrassment.

America’s public schools were already a hodgepodge of abysmal test scores, grade inflation, and woke curriculums before Cartel elites used COVID-19 as an excuse to take 18 months off.

MISSISSIPPI’S SCHOOL MIRACLE SHAMES CHICAGO LEADERS’ FAILURE ON EDUCATION

So it should come as no surprise that when the President and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon purged the Department, no one but the Cartel cared. Almost no one outside the Beltway even noticed; The agency has nothing to do with the success of America’s students and schools.

Contrast the nation’s growing indifference to the federal Department’s shutdown with parents’ galloping enthusiasm for the rollout of new school choice programs across the country. In the last four years alone, 18 states have adopted universal parental choice laws; authorized families to use taxpayer money to send their children to private, religious or other alternative schools.

Recently, Texas’ new universal school choice program, set to launch in the fall, announced it was receiving more applications than it currently has seats to fill. The state has set aside $1 billion for the first tranche of Education Freedom Account scholarships, enough for about 90,000 students. More than 240,000 applications were submitted in just a few weeks.

GEORGIA TEACHERS’ UNION BOSS BLAMES SCHOOL CHOICE ON PUBLIC SCHOOLS ‘OVERFINANCED’

Other states are seeing the same high demand.

Arizona’s universal choice program has grown more than 700 percent since 2022, reaching more than 100,000 students. Between 2024 and 2025, West Virginia’s schedule more than doubled, while Arkansas’ schedule nearly tripled. Florida’s massive program serves more than 440,000 of the more than 1.3 million American students currently using school choice programs.

Thanks to the recent wave of universal reform, private school attendance nationwide increased by 25 percent in the last school year alone. What we are witnessing is not just a trend, it is a revolution.

MCMAHON TOLD THE STORY THAT REassured PARENTS ABOUT SPECIAL NEEDS THAT FUNDING WILL CONTINUE WHEN THE SECTION SHOWS.

These two stories—the inexorable erasure of the federal education bureaucracy and the national stampede for school choice—are essentially one story. The American people have seen enough. Progressive interest groups that have taken over and destroyed our education system have lost the trust of parents. Families are finally turning the page and voting with their feet up in the classrooms that the cartels have taken over.

Three-quarters of Americans now support universal school choice. More than half of the states (34) have created at least some private scholarship options. Last year, Trump signed into law the first nationwide school choice tax credit. More than 20 states have signed up to participate.

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Meanwhile, some of the most advanced traditional public schools in the United States today are located in Mississippi, thanks to a miraculous transformation that resulted almost entirely from pedagogical fads favored by elites. Other states such as Louisiana and Alabama follow suit; It ditches the gibberish and uses more classical approaches like phonics and multiplication tables. And look, the kids are learning again.

And this momentum will accelerate over time. Seven of the states that have adopted universal school choice are among the 10 fastest-growing states, including each of the top five. Real choice and real instruction are the future of American education.

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The era of teachers’ unions is over. Parents are reclaiming their right to be their children’s primary educators. And conservative policymakers at all levels of government are finally saving families from corruption and incompetence.

Republics are as strong as their citizens are educated. And for the first time in two generations, America’s school system is moving in the right direction.

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