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On the campaign trail, Donald Trump pledged: Get rid of the US Department of Educationexpand school options, roll back new protections for LGBTQ students, and deport millions of undocumented immigrants.

Now that the former Republican president is heading for a second term, the question arises how likely he will be to act on Trump’s most extreme or unreasonable proposals and what effects students, teachers and parents will see in the classroom.

Trump won a decisive victory, capturing nearly every swing state and gaining ground among young voters and black voters, key members of the Democratic coalition.

Chalkbeat spoke with advocates, experts and former education department officials about what to expect from the next administration. They widely agreed that President Joe Biden would rewrite Title IX. New protections for transgender students and right now bound to the courtswill be repealed, civil rights enforcement will look very different, and future education budgets will be tighter.

But they disagreed that Trump would effectively eliminate the U.S. Department of Education and disagreed on how much progress he might make on federal support for school choice.

A lot will depend on who controls Congress. Votes are still being counted in key races, but Republicans will control the Senate. Control of the House remains unclear and may not be known for days. A trio could pave the way for a broader Trump agenda. If Democrats gain control of the House of Representatives, Trump will need to rely more on executive authority. But even on some key conservative priorities, Republicans lack unanimity, and some may oppose proposals they see as expanding the federal role or disadvantaging their voters.

Trump’s choice as education secretary – whether to choose an experienced manager or a dedicated culture warrior – will also shape the education agenda.

Calls for the abolition of the Ministry of National Education gained new momentum

It was arguably Trump’s most consistent promise on education policy, but it was also the one that seemed the furthest away to some political observers. Conservatives have been talking about getting rid of the department for nearly as long as it has existed, and Trump made no move to disband the department in his first administration.

Complete disbanding of the department would require an act of Congress. But Trump could also limit its reach in other ways, such as eliminating or moving programs, firing career bureaucrats and proposing much tighter budgets.

But Jim Blew, who served in the education department in Trump’s first administration and later founded the Institute in Defense of Liberty, said Trump was determined to get rid of the department, and that alone gave the idea more “gravity.” Blew also believes public support for a federal role in education is changing. Many people think the federal investment in Covid-19 recovery hasn’t yielded much of a result, he said. At the same time, people see initiatives like student loan forgiveness and protections for transgender students as examples of federal overreach.

Blew said it would take months to dismantle the department because every function authorized by Congress would need a new home. But he said it could be done. For example, civil rights enforcement could be delegated to the U.S. Department of Justice, and Title I funding for high-poverty schools could become a block grant administered by the U.S. Department of Human Services.

Blew said Trump has made clear his priorities are economic recovery, immigration and national defense, but that doesn’t mean he won’t deliver on his education promises.

“It doesn’t require a lot of attention,” Blew said. “He needs political capital. And he can spend it continuing to focus on other priorities.”

Immigration enforcement may ripple through school communities

Trump has made the demonization of immigrants a focal point of his campaign, highlighting at every opportunity examples of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants or asylum seekers and the impact of immigration on American communities and schools.

Trump promised to carry out the largest deportation operation in American history. Some experts on immigration policy have said such an effort would be legally and logistically challenging, as well as very expensive. However, most observers expect to see an increase in enforcement.

Workplace raids had become common before Impacts on students whose parents are arrested and the broader community. An estimated 4.4 million American children have at least one undocumented parent, and some former Trump immigration officials He suggested that the families be deported together.

Mike Petrilli, president of the conservative education advocacy organization Fordham Institute, believes Trump’s education policies won’t make much of a difference in American classrooms, but his immigration policy could be felt in dramatic ways.

“That’s what he campaigned on, that’s what he promised to do, and he has a pretty free hand to do it,” said Petrilli, who argues that American schools have a moral as well as legal obligation to educate everyone. children living here.

“There’s a good chance this could be a humanitarian disaster,” Petrilli said. “Is he going to put people in camps? Does this include families? Will there be schools in these camps? “I see no reason to believe they won’t try it.”

Even if enforcement is uneven, changes in federal policy have the potential to create confusion and chaos in local communities, said Janelle Scott, a professor at the University of California Berkeley. He said some families keep their children home from school out of fear. The messages local law enforcement and school district officials send to families in this situation could make a difference.

Transgender students may lose new protections as civil rights enforcement changes

When the Biden administration issued new Title IX rules clarifying and strengthening protections for transgender students, Republican states and conservative groups, including Blew’s Institute in Defense of Liberty, quickly filed lawsuits that led to the rules being blocked in most states.

Conservatives argued that the new rules erode protections for cisgender girls because they may have to share bathrooms and locker rooms with transgender classmates and affect the free speech of teachers who may have to use pronouns and names with which they disagree. They also argued that the Biden administration overstepped the mark by defining discrimination based on gender identity as a form of gender discrimination.

Trump is still expected to rescind the Biden rules, a move that would require a lengthy bureaucratic process. But some observers have bigger fears about the Trump administration. He has repeatedly accused schools of performing gender surgeries without parental consent (a false and unfounded claim) and attacked the idea of ​​gender-focused care for youth and the participation of transgender athletes in sports.

“There are fantastic allegations, but underneath that there is a deep hostility towards gay children and allegations that schools are engaging in child abuse if they protect the rights of gay children,” said Scott, the UC Berkeley professor.

Trump’s first administration also rescinded Obama-era school discipline guidance that aimed to reduce suspensions and expulsions for black students and emphasized quick resolution of complaints. Some conservative groups have also used civil rights complaints to go after programs aimed at promoting the superiority of black students or mentoring teachers of color.

Rick Hess, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said a few school districts could make notable examples of diversity initiatives and create more widespread change, similar to how the Trump education department or the justice department targeted districts by the Obama administration. Above school discipline.

School choice gains modest momentum

Expanding taxpayer funding for private schools and homeschooling has been at the top of the conservative education agenda in recent years. A proposal for a federal tax credit scholarship program, backed by Trump’s first secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, has not gained any traction. But during Biden’s presidency, Republican-led states have expanded or launched private school choice programs, some of which offer money to nearly any interested family.

On Fox News, Trump promised to sign the school choice bill that passed a House committee and talked about the importance of school choice in a barbershop in the Bronx.

Blew expects Trump to push for a tax credit scholarship proposal similar to the one drafted during his first presidency.

Petrilli doesn’t believe Trump cares that much. “It would be an exaggeration to say he made this a priority during the campaign,” he said. “He needs to be reminded to talk about it.”

Petrilli also doesn’t believe there would be enough support even in a Republican-controlled Congress to send a bill to Trump’s desk. Some Republicans in rural areas, where their voters have few private school options, are skeptical. So are small government conservatives who don’t want to expand federal programs.

Voters in three states, including two states Trump won by landslides School choice rejected in vote On Tuesday, it showed that even many conservatives are wary of spending public money on private schools.

But Congress would have to reapprove Trump’s tax cuts, and that could include a tax credit that allows businesses and individuals to write off donations to private school scholarships. Observers also expect to see a push to allow families to use money in tax-preferred 529 accounts for homeschooling expenses, tutoring and other educational needs. This money can already be used for private school tuition.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor in Colorado. Contact Erica at [email protected].