Former President Donald Trump laid out a bold new direction on education in America, laying out his 2024 presidential campaign's education platform Monday night in Davenport, Iowa.
Dismantling the Department of Education, establishing universal school choice, defunding woke school districts, ending "transgender insanity" in sports, and undoing the damage of school lockdowns on children are the hallmarks of it all.
"This is what must be done to save our country from destruction – all of these things," Trump said in his campaign speech, which aired Tuesday afternoon on Newsmax. "And remember this on having to do with education: Out of the top 40 countries, we're always at, like, the bottom of the list in terms of success, per student."
Ultimately, the economics and data just do not jibe in American education, according to Trump.
"I believe it's about three times, and even sometimes four times, more than the second, third, and fourth country – so we spend three to four times more on educating a pupil, and yet we're at the bottom of the list," Trump continued. "They're at the top of the list, and they spend much less money.
"So you know the system doesn't work. So breaking up the Department of Education is a very simple thing to do."
First on the chopping block to reform education in Trump's plan is to defund woke indoctrination in schools.
"I will immediately sign a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school that's pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity, and any other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children," Trump said. "They're children."
Critical race theory is defined by the Encyclopedia Britannica as the concept in which race is a socially constructed category ingrained in American law intended to maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites. It holds that the U.S. society is inherently or systemically racist.
"You know the amazing thing about that: Look at the hand you get for that – bigger than 'we're going to be energy independent,'" Trump said of his platform to take back education and schooling from those with a radical agenda. "The amazing thing is 10 years [ago], if somebody said that, you wouldn't even know what they're talking about."
Parental rights in education should be "common sense," but it has gotten lost in the politicization of America, according to Trump.
"That they can mutilate our children," he continued. "It is without your permission: parental rights. I said the other day, I will bring back parental rights into our school system, right? And the place went crazy. You know, the place went crazy, and I said, 'can you imagine what I'm doing? I'm saying parents, you have rights.' That's what I've said, basically. Simple. Parents, you have rights. The place goes crazy, because our country has gone crazy with this nonsense.
"I really believe it's people that hate our country. It has to be. It's people that hate our country."
In the same vein, girls and women's sports need to be given back their "dignity," Trump added.
"Just as you're doing right here in Iowa: We will keep men out of women's sports," Trump said. "That's another easy one. It's so ridiculous.
"The whole thing is crazy, and it really hurts women," he continued. "It's the opposite of dignity. It's horrible."
Trump repeated his oft-mentioned joke of becoming a women's basketball coach and recruiting LeBron James to identify as a woman and help his team dominate the women's game.
"I'm not a fan of LeBron James; I don't like LeBron, but I'd say, 'Hey, LeBron! You ever think of becoming a woman, because you're going to be on my team? We're gonna go undefeated for the next five years, LeBron,'" Trump joked.
Also, schools that impose vaccine and mask mandates under Democrat-rule will be defunded, Trump vowed to loud applause.
"I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate – kindergarten through college," Trump said. "Out of control.
"You know, we have some great Republican governors. You have one right here [Iowa GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds], but they didn't close up. They closed up their state for a short period of time, and many of them didn't close at all. They didn't close at all – and they had a lot of pressure, but not from me. I allowed them to keep them open."
Trump noted the states where schools stayed open did much better coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic with youth mental health and educational success.
"You look at South Carolina, how well they did," he told Iowa Caucus voters. "You can look at South Dakota. You can look at various states that did. Tennessee did fantastically well. You did fantastically well. They weren't mandated to do anything.
"They were, you know, using your own good common sense."
School lockdowns pushed by Democrats were damaging, Trump stressed.
"Many of our young people are still dealing with the fallout of the prolonged school closures and the cancellations, sports and activities, and they become antisocial – lots of bad things happened," he said. "We will be the administration that commits to get these kids back on track and quickly. Kids are going go back to school and participating fully. And now they're really in the process of finally getting it done.
"But this must be our priority, has to be, and I will tell you that."
Also, Iowa earned Trump's praise for delivering school choice, which allows kids in poor school districts to change schools and allow the taxpayer dollars to follow them.
"I want to congratulate Iowa on recently becoming the second state of the nation to deliver universal school choice; that's so good," Trump said. "Very important.
"As president, I will fight to expand that right to every single state in America, and we were doing that, too."
Trump also vowed to allow parents to elect new administrators.
"I'll support the direct election of school principals by the parents," he said. "They should be elected by the parents. If any principal is not getting the job done, of which you have many, many, many – especially in the inner cities – the parents should be able to vote to fire them and to select somebody who will who will get the job."
It all starts with dismantling the federal authority over education, according to Trump.
"We studied it very closely – and I was getting ready to do it, pull the trigger – the long-term goal, but now it's a short-term goal of breaking up the federal Department of Education and redistributing its functions to the states," Trump vowed. "We're going to break it up soon. That will be done quickly. I was ready to get it done. Then, we had a bad election."
All of the above, Trump concluded, only comes with electing him president once again in 2024, he told Iowa.
"OK, 2024 is the final battle – that's it," he said. "If you put me back in the White House, the reign of the corrupt Washington establishment will be over."
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