We don’t yet know what Donald Trump’s second term will mean for education and libraries, but the incoming administration had made its priorities and goals clear. Here are just some of the things we are watching.
The election of any presidential administration will bring change. We don’t yet know what Donald Trump’s second term will mean for education and libraries, but the incoming administration had made its priorities and goals clear.
President-elect Trump denied knowledge of Project 2025—the Heritage Foundation’s policy-defining Mandate for Leadership—on the campaign trail. But after the election, multiple Trump allies tweeted that they could now “reveal” that Project 2025 was the plan all along.
Based on Project 2025 and campaign promises, here are the library and K–12 education issues we are watching and the stated goals and priorities of the incoming administration.
- Elimination of the Department of Education and any federal oversight of public schools.
- Elimination of Title I funding. The loss would impact 2.8 million children, according to the National Education Association, and lead to the loss of more than 180,000 teaching positions.
- Elimination of Head Start programs, which would impact 800,000 infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.
- State funding changes: While campaigning, Trump said that he would withhold education funding for Democratic-leaning states such as California and New York.
- End of Title IX executive order from President Biden that protected the rights of trans, gay, and lesbian students and expanded the definition of sexual assault. The regulation was not in effect nationwide, as many states were still fighting it in court at the time of the election.
- School choice: This would create federal policy to allow families to use public funds to pay for private school tuition and homeschooling.
- Continued attacks on libraries, librarians, books. Project 2025 makes allegations of criminal conduct by librarians, publishers, authors, and educators and argues in favor of criminal charges and incarceration.
- Elimination of the Institute for Museums and Library Services, which provides libraries with resources and grants.
Some administration/Project 2025 priorities are not specifically education related but would impact the lives and education of K–12 students:
- Deportation of undocumented immigrants. There are believed to be approximately 600,000 undocumented students in U.S. public schools. There are also students who are citizens but have undocumented family members, creating fear and uncertainty.
- Attacks on girls and women, the LGBTQIA+ community, and Black and Hispanic students: After Trump’s victory, Tik Tok and X were inundated with Trump supporters posting “Your body, my choice” videos and tweets. Districts have reported boys saying it to girls at schools. A high school librarian overheard a lunch conversation where a trans student was told, “Ha ha, I have more rights than you.” Students in at least seven states have received text messages saying they would be deported or that they were in “Slave group B” and would be picked up by a Trump representative to report to a plantation.
- Ban of contraception/roll back of reproductive care.
- Threat to the legality of gay marriage.
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