The head of the nation’s second-largest teachers’ labor union warned there could be legal complications and privacy risks if President Donald Trump’s administration is successful in dismantling the Department of Education.
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Trump officials are mulling executive actions to eliminate the department as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s task to shrink the federal government.
According to the report, Trump advisers are debating an executive order that « would shut down all functions of the agency that aren’t written explicitly into statute or move certain functions to other departments, » and would call for a legislative proposal to fully abolish the department.
During an appearance on CNN on Tuesday, president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, said what Trump was doing was illegal, and she expressed concerns about privacy risks involved with the overhaul of the federal agency.
EXPERTS REVEAL HOW TRUMP CAN KEEP CAMPAIGN PLEDGE TO ELIMINATE DEPT OF EDUCATION: ‘SCALING DOWN ITS SIZE’
« The move is not legal, » Weingarten told host Kate Bolduan. « There are lots of things about the Department of Education that are in statute, » she said about funds that go out from the department to low-income families, students with disabilities, English as a second language learners, and to work study programs.
« You’re talking about millions of kids. And what that department really does is it actually makes sure that the money goes out and it’s not stolen. It is actually used for the intended purposes. Those are the most important functions of the Department of Education, » she argued.
Weingarten denied the agency handled curriculum in schools but served as more of a financial aid office.
The labor leader argued there should be more federal control over education, saying there should be a federal policy helping schools to compete with China.
She suggested vocational training in schools could be one way to help students and create more American jobs.
« We need federal policy that actually has kids, boys, having more options in high school to do these kinds of things, become technicians and welders and things like that. That’s what the federal Department of Education should be doing. That kind of policy to actually grow American jobs. »
Weingarten also argued that eliminating the Education Department could create privacy risks.
« Think about both in terms of Treasury and in terms of education, the amount of personal, private financial information that that department has, just like Treasury has all the information of Social Security, all the information about taxes. In the Department of Education, it has so much personal information for people. So the question is, why is an unelected person taking this private information from people who have trusted the Department of Education to give them their financial information? That, to me, is the scariest thing, » she said.
« Nobody elected Donald Trump or Elon Musk to take their private information, » Weingarten warned.
TRUMP’S WRITTEN A DEI GOVERNMENT DEATH SENTENCE. SCHOOL POLICIES SHOULD BE NEXT
The scrutiny of the Education Department comes as a new report from watchdog organization Parents Defending Education finds the federal department has awarded over $200 million to 48 universities to inject diversity, equity and inclusion content into counseling courses since 2021.
The latest data from the Education Department also shows that American students’ reading skills have continued to decline since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2024 Nation’s Report Card revealed that reading scores fell two points for fourth and eighth grade students. Math scores remained virtually unchanged for eighth graders and moved up two points for fourth graders, which is still three points lower than the average score in 2019 for fourth grade math.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF MEDIA AND CULTURE
« Today’s NAEP results reveal a heartbreaking reality for American students and confirm our worst fears: not only did most students not recover from pandemic-related learning loss, but those students who were the most behind and needed the most support have fallen even further behind, » the Department of Education said in a statement. « Despite the billions of dollars that the federal government invests in K-12 education annually, and the approximately $190 billion in federal pandemic funds, our education system continues to fail students across the nation. »
US ‘REPORT CARD’ SHOWS STUDENTS HAVE FALLEN BEHIND IN READING, BARELY BUDGED IN MATH: ‘THE NEWS IS NOT GOOD’
Weingarten has previously argued that AFT members are indifferent to the prospect of the Department of Education being abolished.
During an appearance on MSNBC in November, she said, « My members don’t really care about whether they have a bureaucracy at the Department of Education or not. In fact, Al Shanker and the AFT in the 1970s were opposed to its creation. We thought it should stay within HEW (Department of Health, Education, and Welfare) because of the whole child. »
In 2019, Weingarten made over half a million dollars per year in her job, according to AFT’s Internal Revenue Service Form 990. Her salary was more than nine times the average teachers salary in the U.S.
Source link : https://www.foxnews.com/media/randi-weingarten-sounds-alarm-about-trump-moving-eliminate-education-dept-not-legal
Author :
Publish date : 2025-02-04 20:31:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
