Michigan Republican Party Chair Jim Runestad told Newsmax on Friday that he "loves" what President Donald Trump is doing in dismantling the Education Department and said it will be "wonderful" for Michigan students.
"The Democrats just voted to reaffirm their commitment to DEI [diversity, equity, inclusion] when Michigan's scores are collapsing," Runestad said on "Wake Up America."
"We're the second-worst for fourth grade reading in the nation," he continued. "The numbers are coming down dramatically, and this is their focus. I love what the president is doing. He's saying let's return the billions and billions being spent by the Education Department back to the states, like it was prior to 1979, when we used to have some of the best schools in the nation. Since '79, we've spent $3 trillion, and it's been poured down a rat hole because there's been no improvement in test scores."
Runestad criticized bureaucrats in Lansing for spending money on "woke ideology" rather than addressing the needs of students across the U.S., highlighting their lack of action.
"Get the dollars back to the local schools, to the states, where the parents can start making decisions, where it can really have an impact locally on those students, where they can make decisions with their parents about how they want money spent," he said. "Right now, it's some detached bureaucrat that no one knows that probably never even been in a classroom dispensing billions of dollars. So, this is wonderful."
In the fulfillment of a campaign promise, Trump signed an executive order on Thursday that seeks to shrink the Education Department. The White House said that the department will not close completely and will retain critical functions including Title I funding for low-income schools, Pell grants, money for children with disabilities, and managing federal student loans.
While Trump has frequently railed against the Education Department, calling it wasteful and poisoned by liberalism, fully dismantling it will likely require an act of Congress, which established it in 1979.
Capitol Hill Republicans have said they intend to introduce a bill to accomplish the president's takedown of the department, which he has blamed for America's decline in academic performance.
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Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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