What will education look like under the Trump administration? Probably a lot like Florida
Miami Herald | By Clara-Sophia Daly |
President Trump has demonstrated his administration’s priorities for education via a series of executive orders over the past weeks. With the stroke of his pen, he has laid out a vision for the U.S. Department of Education that prioritizes funding for state school choice programs, proposes penalties for schools that “indoctrinate” students, puts an end to transgender student athletes competing in women’s sports and, most recently, eliminates Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs in universities.
If this all sounds familiar to Floridians, it should. Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature have passed a series of laws aimed at reshaping public education in much the same way.
Florida laid the groundwork for Trump’s education policies starting four years ago, with laws aimed at curtailing how history and sexuality could be discussed, eliminating Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, limiting children’s access to specific books, banning transgender women from playing sports with athletes assigned female at birth and massively expanding school choice vouchers.
The Florida Department of Education said in a statement sent to the Miami Herald that they are proud to be an example for the nation on education issues, creating policies which support charter and private schools and ridding public schools of “liberal indoctrination.”
Commissioner Manny Diaz speaks at the Florida Board of Education meeting at Miami Dade College on Wednesday, May 29, 2024, in Miami, Florida.
“Florida has led the charge on these issues, enacting groundbreaking legislation such as the Parental Rights in Education Act, the STOP WOKE Act, and House Bill 1069 (2023),” read the statement, legislation aimed to prohibit schools and businesses from teaching concepts related to sexuality, race, gender, racism, and privilege, which President Trump’s executive orders also oppose.
The department says it looks forward to working with the United States Department of Education and the Trump Administration to “further this important work and protect our students from indoctrination.”
Critics say state cannot be trusted with federal funds
Critics of President Trump’s executive orders say that pulling from Florida’s education playbook is not wise. According to The Nation’s Report Card, published by the National Center for Education Statistics, Florida’s war on “woke” hasn’t seemed to improve academic outcomes over the past few years. Florida students’ reading scores have fallen significantly since 2022 and eighth grade math scores are the lowest in over two decades.
Florida’s Commissioner of Education, Manny Diaz Jr., blamed the Biden administration’s methodology for Florida’s poor results in an op-ed. He argued that the assessment should also take into account students attending private and charter schools, a growing number in the state supported by taxpayer-funded scholarships or “vouchers.”
The Florida Education Association, the largest teachers union in the state, blames the state’s education policies for the poor scores. Andrew Spar, the president of the Florida Education Association, said that many of the proposals coming from the Oval Office have been tested in Florida, and that “the results are not promising.”
Andrew Spar
He says this does not bode well for the future of public education in the rest of the country, particularly if the Department of Education —which uses federal grants to influence state-controlled school systems — allows the states to distribute federal funds how they see fit.
According to the Florida Department of Education, in the 2022-2023 year, 17.28 percent of school district funding came from federal sources. Florida ranks 32 in the nation for the amount of federal funding per student spent toward K-12, according to the Education Data Initiative.
But although federal funding is not the majority of Florida’s education budget, much of what comes to Florida from Washington D.C. is funneled to low-performing schools and students with disabilities, as well as for financial aid for higher education.
Trump’s executive order calls for federal funds to be given to the states for school choice programs, which critics worry that the limited federal funds would be stretched between traditional public, charter and private schools.
Karla Hernandez Mats, United Teachers of Dade president, smiles as the Stay Woke Florida bus tour arrives at Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist Church on June 22, 2023, in South Miami, Florida.
Karla Hernandez-Mats, the president of the teachers union in Miami-Dade, says that school districts are already burdened with campaigning for local referendums which harness property taxes to fund schools and she fears the federal funds will never find their way to local schools if they are distributed to the state to administer.
“What worries us is that our state has never supported education the way it should,” said Hernandez-Mats. “We cannot feel at ease that our state, which has not done well by our community, will use these funds properly,” she said.
Throwing money into school choice
Trump’s Expanding Educational Freedom And Opportunity For Families executive order underscores the president’s commitment to the idea that public money should follow the child instead of automatically being sent to traditional public schools.
Last year, Florida’s school voucher program expanded substantially after removing income restrictions, which makes them available to all children. In the 2024-2025 year, at least 489,585 school vouchers have been distributed by Step Up for Students, an agency that provides the vast majority of vouchers in Florida. About 70 percent of those students were already attending private school, according to Step Up for Students, which means that state tax dollars are now subsidizing private schools.
Florida is not the only state in the nation to have robust school-choice or “voucher” programs. At least 16 states across the nation have voucher programs, according to EdChoice, a group that supports and tracks school choice vouchers.
Ralph Arza is the director of the Florida Charter School Alliance and a former legislator who was part of the early “pro-school choice” movement in Florida. He believes that the expanded school choice voucher program is evidence there is more equity today than ever. Arza says the executive order will empower dollars to go directly to children and teachers and limit wasteful bureaucracy.
Critics warn that diverting funding to private schools and charter schools is problematic because those institutions are not governed by an elected school board and do not have the same public accountability mechanisms.
But Arza says this puts the parents in control.
“Mom and Dad are the ultimate accountability, and that is who we are empowering to make that decision,” said Arza.
Democratic Congresswoman Frederica Wilson, a former educator and Miami-Dade school board member, opposes the executive order and the trend of funneling public money into private and charter schools.
“Charters and private schools cherry-pick, and public schools have to educate everyone—even with less funding. This decision is wrong, it is unfair, and it’s an insane ploy to destroy public education and leave it in shambles. I implore everyone: do not stop supporting our wonderful public schools!” she said in a statement.
Title 1 funds in danger
One of the criticisms of the U.S. Department of Education has been the amount of bureaucracy states encounter just to access federal funds.
Title I funding is meant to supplement state and local funding for low-achieving children in high-poverty areas. It has intense monitoring protocols to ensure the money is spent efficiently.
Robert Enlow, the director of EdChoice, the largest pro-school choice lobbying group in the nation, predicts the executive order will improve the flow of federal funds to where they are needed.
He suggested that federal funds for Title I — federal grants to support schools with low-income students — could be sent as block grants to the state and go directly into Educational Savings Accounts, which parents can use to send their children to private or charter schools.
He also said the money could be used to create more innovation funds to build more schools, whether that be private or charter schools. Many private schools in Florida are in high demand.
But critics are concerned that putting Title I funds in the hands of states may not be in the best interest of those students and local leaders have expressed dismay at the Trump administration’s intentions.
In a statement, Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, the second largest teachers union in the nation, says the order “hijacks federal money used to level the playing field for poor and disadvantaged kids and hands it directly to unaccountable private operators.”
Spar, the Florida Education Association president, challenges the idea that President Trump is empowering states to make their own decisions. “They are really not giving states control, they are trying to control what states are doing,” he said.
