Last week, when President Trump signed a long-expected executive order dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, it sent shockwaves across the country.
Trump instructed Secretary Linda McMahon to "take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities." The department cannot legally close without congressional approval.
John B. King Jr., former Education Secretary under President Obama, told All Things Considered host Emily Kwong that instead of shrinking the department, the administration should be focusing on solutions, such as solving chronic absenteeism.
"The reality is we need the department to provide leadership in this moment," King, who is now the Chancellor of the State University of New York (SUNY), told NPR.
On top of that, the Trump administration has detained some international scholars who have expressed support for Palestinian causes or criticized Israel over the war in Gaza.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
Emily Kwong: Federal immigration agents have arrested students and professors at several universities — Columbia, Georgetown, Tufts, just to name a few. How do you respond to these events?
John B. King Jr.: It's deeply troubling. Look, we have a commitment in the United States to the First Amendment and to ensuring people have an opportunity to express their views, even if their views that we find distasteful. And folks need to be able to do that while they are studying at American universities. And they shouldn't have to live in fear around expressing their views about politics or foreign policy.
Kwong: How have these arrests changed your schools? Does something stick out to you?
King: You know, it just created a climate of fear. And I think ultimately that's one of the tragedies here, is that we want our universities — all universities in the United States — to be places where there's robust discourse about ideas, tough conversations, about areas of disagreement. And you don't want people to be afraid to speak up and you don't want people to be afraid to come to the United States to study. Our higher education system is the envy of the world, in part because we attract the best talent from every part of the world. And it's very concerning that now people are taking away a message that maybe the United States isn't welcoming to international students.
Kwong: How have your peers reacted to this when you've spoken to other university leaders? What are they telling you? What are you all talking about?
King: Look, everyone's worried. Worried about the attacks on federal research, which, again, has helped build the country's economy [and] help make us the envy of the world because of our innovation economy. And so, the efforts to cut federal investments in the National Institutes of Health, to cut federal investments in the preparation of teachers, that's very disturbing and undermines our work. People are very worried about the federal student aid system. The layoffs at the Education Department threaten that system.
Kwong: Now, the Department of Ed, it still stands. It cannot be officially closed without the approval of Congress. But between the layoffs and the departures, it is about half the size as it was when Trump took office. When you look at the places where the cuts have happened, what do you make of that?
King: Two of the things I'm most worried about. One, a breakdown of the federal financial aid system. The free application for federal student aid is the gateway to accessing the Pell Grant program, Federal Student Aid, as well as, in many cases…
Kwong: Pell Grant, of course, are subsidies that students get to pay for college.
King: That's exactly right. And it's made the American dream possible for generations of low-income students. But if the FAFSA breaks, if the financial aid system is unreliable, you're undermining the entirety of public higher education and the whole higher education sector. At SUNY, about half of our entering students are Pell-eligible students.
Kwong: Wow.
King: If they're not able to access that aid, they won't be able to go to college. The other area I'm very worried about is the Office for Civil Rights. That's where you go if you're experiencing discrimination on the basis of race or gender or disability. They got 20,000 complaints, more than 20,000 complaints last year. Who's going to handle that? With so many fewer employees?
Kwong: One thing that really is being debated is the department's role. When the department was set up in the late '70s, it was legally prohibited from telling schools what or how to teach. So, what do you make of the fact that the Trump administration is blaming the department for low math and reading scores since the pandemic?
King: That doesn't make any sense at all. I mean, the reality is we need the department to provide leadership in this moment. Student performance is below where it was before COVID. We ought to be talking about things like intensive tutoring, which we know works in helping students make up ground. We ought to be talking about the national crisis of chronic absenteeism and what can be done to make sure that students are in school. And instead, we're talking about the dismantling of the department. It's a distraction.
Kwong: Much of what the Trump administration and Education Secretary Linda McMahon are trying to do here is expand school choice. So, their ideas include, you know, private school vouchers, other school choice initiatives. If you were to imagine that truly coming to pass an expanded school choice, how would that transform education in the U.S.?
King: I'm really worried about the administration's advocacy for vouchers. The evidence is that vouchers do not help to improve student performance, but they do undermine the role of public education as a culture-building, democracy-building institution. So, I'm worried about that. I'm worried that in rural communities, vouchers make no sense because there really aren't a supply of private schools that students could attend. And so, you may end up taking resources away from vulnerable rural schools without really offering anything substantive to help students there. The result is teacher layoffs and less opportunity for the students who are attending public schools. And that undermines the long-term health of our economy and our long-term national security.
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