As the Freedom From Religion Foundation warned in November, President Trump and his Christian nationalist allies are coming after public education.
This week, the anticipated assault on the Department of Education has become reality. Trump is preparing an imminent executive order to drastically curtail the department’s ability to regulate education, paving the way for an explosion of unaccountable religious charter schools and the erosion of science-based curricula. If enacted, the order would accelerate the dismantling of public education in favor of a privatized, religiously driven system that discriminates against nonbelievers, LGBTQ-plus students and other marginalized communities.
Anonymous leakers have reported that Trump’s executive order will begin dismantling the Education Department from within until they can get Congress to shut it down for good. U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie has already introduced a bill, HR 899, to abolish the department that is one sentence long: “The Department of Education shall terminate on Dec. 31, 2026.” Trump’s order will reportedly shut down all department programs that aren’t explicitly provided for by law.
However, Trump’s acolytes haven’t been waiting for the executive order to be signed or for Congress to take up the bill. Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” known as DOGE, has already begun working inside the Education Department, looking to cut spending and staff. Dozens of department employees have been put on paid administrative leave in response to Trump’s order banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government.
At a White House press conference Tuesday, Trump quipped about the first task for Linda McMahon, his nominee for education secretary, “I believe strongly in school choice, but in addition to that, I want the states to run schools, and I want Linda to put herself out of a job.”
McMahon is chair of the board of the America First Policy Institute, which she helped start with Tim Dunn, the billionaire Christian nationalist pastor seeking to destroy public education, privatize public schools and create a theocracy. The institute is a nonprofit think tank promoting policies aligned with Trump’s agenda. Its America First Agenda competes with Project 2025 as a playbook for the Trump administration, detailing the radical transformation it has planned for America’s education system in “Pillar IV: Give Parents More Control Over the Education of Their Children.”
“Christian nationalists want to defund, defang and ultimately destroy public education so they can replace it with religious and other propaganda,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Since public schools are the bedrock of our democracy, this is nothing less than an attack on democracy itself.”
Despite the ongoing anti-public school campaign, the majority of voters across the country continue to reject school vouchers. Three ballot initiatives on school choice failed just last November alone, including a ballot initiative in Kentucky funneling public money toward private schooling that was defeated by roughly 65 percent to 35 percent. In Nebraska, almost all 93 counties voted to repeal an existing voucher program, and in Colorado, voters rejected an attempt to add a “right to school choice” to the state Constitution.
The vast majority of private schools are religiously affiliated. Vouchers and tuition tax credits (or other “neovoucher” programs) almost entirely benefit religious schools with overtly religious missions, which integrate religion into every subject. Further, most voucher beneficiaries are students who would have attended private religious schools anyway. Thus, such programs divert public funding from public schools to private religious schools without any reasonable justification.
The Department of Education plays a vital role in leveling the playing field for students from all walks of life. Programs such as Title I provide funding to schools serving low-income communities, ensuring that every child — regardless of ZIP code — has access to quality education. Without federal oversight, states with fewer resources might struggle to meet the needs of marginalized students, such as those with disabilities or English language learners, exacerbating existing inequalities.
While education is primarily a state and local responsibility, federal oversight ensures that states adhere to baseline standards in testing, graduation rates and teacher qualifications. Without the Department of Education, there would be little recourse to address systemic problems, such as schools failing to meet the needs of disadvantaged populations, enforcement of civil rights and critical protections for vulnerable students.
Public education is the cornerstone of a free and democratic society — and the Department of Education plays a crucial role in ensuring that every child, regardless of their background, has access to a quality education. We must protect the Department of Education and ensure our public education system remains secular, inclusive and accessible to all children. Dismantling the department and attacking public education through vouchers will erode the very foundation of our democracy: public education.
FFRF urges all Americans who value secular education to speak out against these unconstitutional power grabs. Public schools should be centers of knowledge, not battlegrounds for religious extremism. FFRF will continue to monitor developments and explore legal avenues to challenge unconstitutional actions.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with more than 40,000 members and several chapters across the country. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
