Trump’s attack on schools could backfire

Donald Trump tends to deflect attention from his witlessness by talking a lot, spewing a continual stream of hot air signifying nothing but narcissism and hate. It’s a strategy now adopted by the people writing his stampede of executive orders, which read less like legal documents and more like Facebook rants written by a newly pardoned J6er on his 8th glass of Wild Turkey. But Trump has a tell: The more he talks, the less he has to say. And it seems this may also hold for his executive orders. The most verbose executive orders are likely the ones with the least power to effect change, a fact Trump’s minions are trying to hide by overwhelming people with verbiage. 

So it was with an executive order with the typical hyperventilating title “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” which clocked in at a miserable 2,391 words, all devoted to solving a “problem” that exists only in the imaginations of right-wing activists. “In recent years, however, parents have witnessed schools indoctrinate their children in radical, anti-American ideologies while deliberately blocking parental oversight,” the document breathlessly claims. It goes on to allege that “innocent children are compelled to adopt identities as either victims or oppressors solely based on their skin color” and even that “young men and women are made to question whether they were born in the wrong body.” Yep, they are accusing your local schoolteacher of badgering your cis kid until they turn trans, which is not how any of this works. It’s a genuine surprise the authors of this order held back from claims that teachers summoned demons or practiced witchcraft, though you know they say that stuff to each other off the clock. Trump, after all, infamously repeated during his campaign the lie that “they’re allowed to take your child when he goes to school and turn him into a male — to a female — without parental consent.”

With MAGA, every accusation is a confession, and no more is this true than in claims that it’s the left who wants to “indoctrinate” children. That much is immediately proved in this document, which is reams and reams of orders to force children into silent submission to a far-right point of view. Teachers are threatened with arrest if they allow a trans student to dress how they like or use the name of their choice. Schools are commanded to replace fact-based history with “patriotic education principles,” which is unsubtle code for fake histories that minimize slavery and valorize historical white supremacists. There’s plenty of intimidating language about not teaching “gender ideology,” which is the scare term for accepting trans people exist. This is just more mandatory indoctrination, of course, because it means that if a kid asks about trans people, a teacher would be forced to lie and claim they are delusional, which cuts against the long-standing findings of the psychological community. 

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So that’s all gross and evil — but it’s not entirely clear how much legal weight this screed has. As Dana Goldstein at the New York Times reports, “States and localities provide 90 percent of the funding for public education — and have the sole power to set curriculums, tests, teaching methods and school-choice policies.” What federal funding exists “goes out to states in a formula set by Congress, and the president has little power to restrict its flow.” State and local officials in blue states and cities are already telling Trump where to shove his executive order.

The executive order asks how much money “can legally be rescinded as a penalty for teaching curricula that President Trump finds objectionable,” explained the California Department of Education director of communications, Liz Sanders. “We can give the Trump Administration that answer right now: nothing.” She noted that it is “against federal law for the White House to dictate what educators can and cannot teach” by threatening funds. 

This “order” really should be understood more as a messaging document. In one way, that still makes it very dangerous. Fueled by far-right groups like Moms for Liberty, Republican-controlled states and localities have already been waging war on the local schools by banning books, trying to force queer students and teachers back in the closet, and bullying teachers into replacing real educational materials with right-wing propaganda. With this boost from Trump, they may get more emboldened, though it’s hard to imagine it getting worse in places like Oklahoma, Florida, and Texas. 

But even in deep-red states, the efforts to remake public education in MAGA’s image have been getting a lot of pushback. In Oklahoma, the Trumpified state superintendent keeps pulling stunts like trying to force students to pray for Donald Trump or mandating Bible study in the classroom. Often, these stunts fall flat, such as when the Oklahoma state attorney general blocked the mandatory prayer and local school districts simply refused orders to hold Bible study in class. In Texas, the state tried to bribe school districts into adopting the Bible curriculum by offering more money to school districts that use it. But with state civil rights and education groups threatening to sue, districts will likely see it’s not worth the relatively small kickback, even if they were tempted. Georgia also tried to lure schools into offering Bible study classes. But there was almost no student interest, so most school districts didn’t bother. Only 10% of the schools offered the classes. And out of over a half-million Georgia high school students in 2019, only 740 took the class. 

The likeliest response of most school districts will be to ignore Trump’s “order.” Any that are foolish enough to obey might find that they’ve got a much more formidable opponent than the bloviating fascist in the White House: local parents.

As I learned covering a school curriculum fight swing county in suburban Pennsylvania in 2023, parents will often put up an extraordinary fight to wrest control back from right-wing ideologues. It’s not because they’re “woke” and want to “indoctrinate” children with leftist ideals. Many of these parents were not especially political people, especially compared to their conservative opponents, who were rabidly ideological. Their concerns were kids having a real education and a safe environment to learn in. I didn’t get the sense that parents were overly worried their kids would be “indoctrinated” by the right-wing propaganda that Republicans were pushing on the school district. Instead, they were worried about what kids weren’t learning if teachers were wasting time with fake lessons about a MAGA fantasy of the past. These parents had their eyes firmly on college applications and future employment opportunities, which they feared would be harmed if their kids didn’t get a well-rounded education that taught them the truth about the world. They wanted a robust library so kids could enjoy reading, not one where books kids would actually read were pulled from shelves for being “woke.” As one parent said of the Moms for Liberty school board members they were seeking to oust, “These are not serious people.” It wasn’t about culture war for these parents, but about making sure their kids weren’t wasting their time at school. 

One reason I suspect a lot of school boards have simply ignored the Bible study and other unserious dictates from MAGA Republican leaders showboating for the cameras is that they know that many parents have their backs, often even in more conservative areas. This also is a reminder to demoralized liberals that resistance to Trumpism on the local level does matter and is surprisingly powerful. The fight over education can be a powerful way to demonstrate that Trump is a paper tiger, and if people stand up to him, he will often lose. He tries to distract from this reality with chest-thumping and talking — oh so much talking — but there is power in simply saying no to him and watching his ability to force his will falter.