“Federal education policy should be limited,” Lindsey Burke writes. “And, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated.”
Burke is responsible for writing this section of Project 2025, which focuses on suggestions for dismantling and eliminating the Department of Education.
This is incredibly dangerous. Not only does this mean the end of education regulation, but the privatization of education. The goal, as she writes, is to “leave room” for “faith-based institutions, career schools, military academies and lifelong learning programs.”
The problem with this is that it leaves children who are born into poverty in the dust. Dismantling public education will not just provide room for charter schools, but it will force charter schools to be the only viable option.
Charter schools, or private schools, aren’t subject to the regulations placed on education. This may seem like it isn’t a problem until you realize they pick and choose what their students learn.
For example, charter schools could strategically keep the subjugation of Native Americans or the severity of slavery out of their history lessons. They might only provide a Eurocentric view of literature and philosophy, which excludes perspectives from other thinkers from around the world.
Burke also proposes “safeguarding civil rights” in education by “rejecting gender ideology and critical race theory.”
She suggests doing this by reforming Title IX and changing the definition of sex “to mean only biological sex recognized at birth.”
She claims there is no scientific basis for the definition of sex to sexual orientation and gender identity. The reason the definition includes those terms in the first place is only because of the research that has been done on this topic.
Burke also wrongly suggests that allowing social transitions in schools will increase the likelihood that they will seek out hormone therapy. Not all who transition seek out hormone therapy.
She assumes that radical gender ideology will harm girls and women, so eliminating it will ultimately be good. However, getting rid of sex education will do drastically more harm than good. This has been proven several times over.
The American Association of Pediatrics notes that the lack of sex education results in higher rates of adolescent pregnancy and birth. The AAP also notes that “withholding information or providing inaccurate information about sexual and sexual behavior” can “harm the healthy sexual and mental development of youth.”
Schools should be a safe place to learn and grow. The Heritage Foundation sees schools as an institution in which to foster like-minded individuals who cannot think for themselves and conform to the status quo. The Heritage Foundation, and think tanks like it, do not want free-thinking individuals. When they control the children, they control the future.
The biggest thing the Heritage Foundation fears is democracy. So, vote against this plan. The future of education depends on it.
