U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for the dismantling of the Department of Education on March 20. Closing the department requires congressional approval.
After the order was signed, the White House acted by stripping schools of funding, taking money from public schools, giving it to private charter schools and allowing ICE to raid schools, according to the National Education Association. Nearly half of the staff of the department was also cut.
“The funding is concerning. More importantly, ICE and mass deportation are even bigger concerns. My students are scared, and now with ICE being able to come into schools, that is a huge threat to our children and their safety,” said Amy Hewitt-Olatunde, an adjunct professor in St. Thomas’ school of education. “School is for education, not deportation.”
Hewitt-Olatunde said that the disbandment affects everyone in education, but especially “already marginalized learners in this country,” such as students with IEPs — Individualized Education Programs — and 504 plans, English learners, students from diverse backgrounds and students from different countries.
Hewitt-Olatunde, in addition to teaching at St. Thomas, also teaches ESL to middle and high school students. She added that she will be a teacher until her retirement, but it is concerning to her when so many of her students have IEPs and are English learners.
Associate Professor of Education Chelda Smith also teaches outside of the university. She is a coach in residence at St. Peter Claver Catholic School and provides trauma-informed coaching support for St. John Paul II Catholic School and St. Peter Claver.
“I’m very concerned about the dismantling of Department of Education for a few reasons,” Smith said. “The Department of Education maintains the federal student aid system, and so, in a world where we don’t have a department that is federal and we move to state by state, while Minnesota itself is a more fiscally secure state, I have to think more nationally that other states won’t have as many resources to potentially cover access to higher education.”
Concerning St. Thomas, Smith recalled the education grants that were revoked, then temporarily reinstated earlier this semester.
“That’s the sort of action we can see happening more and more in the future when there isn’t that federal source of funding,” Smith said. “(Students are) going to lose the ability to access a central and reliable form of financial aid, and instead it’s going to be much more of a who you know, what you know.”
Smith said there will be a “greater issue of access,” particularly with first-generation students who do not have access to a parent or caregiver who is able to coach them through the process of going to college. If the Department of Education was closed, they still would not have centralized access, Smith said.
Smith said that accreditation will also be affected. When a university is accredited, a student would not have to “start over” with their degree if they moved states.
With teaching, interstate reciprocity is a common practice, meaning teachers can move from state to state knowing they have a valid degree that they can use to get a job, Smith said. The same goes for travel nurses and other occupations.
“Without federal oversight, we won’t have accreditation anymore. So you’re really going to just be out there hoping that your degree is going to be valid,” Smith said.
Smith said that she’s “expecting a lot of chaos.”
“If you look at states like Massachusetts and Minnesota that have invested a lot in their educational infrastructure, I am hopeful that we will be okay, but states like Mississippi and Louisiana and Georgia that haven’t invested as much, I’m very nervous about not just their education system, but the overall quality of life for the people who live there,” Smith said.
Smith called to mind other historical instances where people had to step up.
“This is such an incredible opportunity for teachers to resist. I see this as the way nurses really stepped up during COVID,” Smith said. “I feel like this is an opportunity for teachers to really step up during this chaotic educational period.”
Junior Julian Gyurisin, who is studying to be a math teacher, had a different look on the disbandment.
“I’m definitely of the opinion that (the) state should have more control than the federal government should have because you need to make things specific to each region,” Gyurisin said. “Like, there are unique things about Minnesota that Minnesota needs to address versus what Nevada needs to address.”
If the federal government had less control, Gyurisin said that wouldn’t make much of a difference to him since the state would still have the main influence.
“Kids will get taught either way. More money isn’t going to make better teachers. We as a society have to produce better teachers, but throwing more money into training and stuff, I don’t think will help,” Gyurisin said.
Gyurisin also discussed an issue he considered “controversial”: college loans.
“Supposedly, with the federal government pulling out, there won’t be as much money to help people pay back their loans for college, which, for people who have loans currently, I don’t think that’s a great idea,” Gyurisin said. “But I don’t think — like, this sounds really strange coming from a teacher, but I don’t think we need as many people in college as we have right now.”
Gyurisin said that people may be able to make it in the world on their own without having to “incur any student debt.”
“I think it would be more important to just live in that life for a little bit. I hope people who, for whom college is not supposed to be a path, this dissuades them from coming,” Gyurisin said.
Like Hewitt-Olatunde, Gyurisin said that Trump’s executive order does not affect his decision to teach.
“I became a teacher because I want to help kids become their full selves,” Gyurisin said.
“I’m still going to find ways to connect with kids and teach them what they need to learn.”
Bridget Schmid can be reached at schm1520@stthomas.edu.
