Do the President's Executive Orders for Schools Have Any Impact on Trinity?

This week's article summary is today's lead story in Education Week's daily update: What's in Trump's New Executive Orders on Indoctrination and School Choice.

I felt that this article was a perfect springboard for reminding us how little local, state, and federal governments influence Trinity.

 

First and most important, Trinity is an private-independent school. 

 

As such, we do not take any funds from any government, including the federal government. Why? Because once a school begins accepting funds from any government program, agency, or department, that school will have to follow government stipulations, which often includes required standardized testing.

 

We do obey government health and safety laws, regulations, and guidelines, but all other aspects our school operations are based on our compliance with SAIS standards and best practices for private-independent schools. 

 

So, by being private and independent, we get to a) choose the students we best serve, b) how and what we teach, and c) the ways we measure the progress and learning of our students.

 

So the big take-away from reading the article below is Trinity does not need to worry about any presidential executive order.

 

As I have only worked in private-independent schools, I accept the bias I have for how we operate and function—think, for example, how independent schools were able to deal with the Covid pandemic.  Yet even with my bias, I firmly believe that educational matters should be left to the experts (we teachers), not local, state, or federal politicians.

 

In particular, Trump’s recent executive order wants to eliminate ‘radical indoctrination’ around issues of diversity, including race and gender identity. 

 

You can read in the article the specific details about how the order defines these issues, but what’s most important to me is how Trinity deals with diversity.

 

First,  as a mission-driven school, Trinity is about inclusion. We can’t properly serve all of our applicants and occasionally need to counsel out some students for academic or behavioral reasons, yet we are a school that celebrates the individuality of all members of our community – race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, etc. One of our stated goals/outcomes is to develop in our students a strong, confident sense of self.

 

Equally importantly, we help our students develop and demonstrate care and concern for others. We guide our students to welcome and include others, to see how others are similar and different from them, to learn to work cooperatively with others.

 

In age-appropriate ways befitting an elementary school, we explore topics and issues thatt the executive order brands as controversial. While we often make abstract concepts concrete and tangible for our students, they begin to see that the world is complex and  imperfect, particularly around areas of diversity. 

 

With such a polarized culture outside of schools, it takes courage to teach today.

 

While it may seem that all schools are being attacked and challenged, rest assured Trinity will continue to do what’s right for our students, as we have always done!

 

Joe

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In the 10 days since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, he has set a dizzying pace for his second term and is endeavoring to make his mark on the nation’s schools, despite laws limiting the federal government’s K-12 reach.

His most direct efforts to dive into education came Wednesday, when the president issued two executive orders, directing federal agencies to determine how to expand school choice and develop a strategy to end what he considers ’radical indoctrination’ in schools. 

Both orders put federal dollars on the line to hammer home his agenda. With existing law, though, the White House has no bearing on curriculum, and no unilateral ability to pull back funding from individual schools or federal education programs.

Regardless, the administration is moving aggressively in ways that differ from Trump’s first term, said Derek Black, a professor of law at the University of South Carolina who specializes in constitutional law and public education.

“This seems like a situation in which they know they don’t have the power, but they seem to be more aggressive, and trying to push power where they may very well not have,” he said.

“Part of what we have, to be honest, are executive orders that are putting what would normally be private conversations on public display; there’s a certain amount of shock and awe to that, because you just don’t normally do that,” Black said.

Here’s a closer look at these two executive orders, and their implications.

What does this order do?

It mandates that administration official develop plans to eliminate federal funds or schools that Trump says indoctrinate kids based on “gender ideology” and “discriminatory equity ideology.” 

The order also reinstates Trump’s 1776 Commission, which the president created in his first term to promote “patriotic education,” but was disbanded by former President Joe Biden.

What does Trump consider “radical indoctrination,” and is it happening in schools?

Trump’s executive order identifies “discriminatory equity ideology” and “gender ideology” as two examples of “indoctrination” happening in schools.

The order defines “discriminatory equity ideology” as “ideology that treats individuals as members of preferred or disfavored groups, rather than as individuals, and minimizes agency, merit, and capability in favor of immoral generalizations.” Examples of this, according to the order, would be saying that members of a race, color, sex, or national origin are morally or inherently superior, while another is “racist, sexist, or oppressive.”

Citing an executive order from Trump’s first day in office that made  federal policy to recognize only two sexes, it defines gender ideology as replacing “the biological category of sex with an ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity.” It asserts that students are being “made to question whether they were born in the wrong body and whether to view their parents and their reality as enemies to be blamed.

Though Trump and other Republicans—in state legislatures, in school board meetings, and in the Capitol—have repeatedly alleged that schools are using critical race theory to indoctrinate students to believe the United States is a racist nation, there’s little evidence this is happening on a wide scale.

An EDWeek Research Center Survey found in 2021 that just 8 percent of teachers said they had taught or even discussed critical race theory with their K-12 students. A study released this month found that high school students confirm that most schools aren’t teaching a one-sided portrayal of the nation’s politics and history, and that their teachers grapple with how to discuss controversial topics in class. And a sweeping report last year from the American Historical Association found teachers mostly said they try to develop students’ historical thinking skills—teaching them how to think, not what to think.

Meanwhile, roughly 3 percent of high school students identify as transgender, and 2 percent are questioning their gender identity, and these students face high rates of bullying and symptoms of depression. Researchers and advocates say schools are a vital piece of the puzzle for improving those mental health outcomes and supporting students.

Does this order immediately cut funding to schools?

No, this order does not immediately cut funding. It directs several federal agencies—the Education, Defense, and Health and Human Services departments—to develop a strategy with recommendations and a plan for eliminating federal funding to schools that are “discriminatory” based on its definition of “gender ideology” and “discriminatory equity ideology.”

Over the next three months, agencies must identify funding sources and streams, including grants and contracts, that go toward K-12 curriculum, instruction, and activities, as well as teacher education, certification, and training that support what the administration considers indoctrination and social transitioning. The agencies must then identify a process to prevent the distribution of rescind awards for those funds.

The Education Department, its secretary, and the federal government have no authority over curriculum matters. Within the last decade, Congress tightened up this very language to make clear that the states are fully in control of curriculum and academic standards, Black said.

What does the order do?

The executive order directs a number of federal agencies to look into their ability to use funds they oversee to allow families to attend private schools--including religious schools—and charter schools. Under the order, agency heads have to report back in the coming months on the options they have for doing that and their plans for implementing those options for families starting next fall.