News: DOGE vs. the Education Department

Monday, January 6, 2025

DOGE vs. the Education Department

Jan 06, 2025

Elon Musk, carrying his son, and Vivek Ramaswamy walk at the Capitol.

Elon Musk, carrying his son, and Vivek Ramaswamy head into a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) meeting with Republican lawmakers at the Capitol in Washington, on Dec. 5, 2024. | Angelina Katsanis/POLITICO

‘DOGE IS COMING’ — President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to get rid of the Education Department — and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency will likely play a key role in any cuts to or restructuring of the federal agency.

— Trump in mid-November announced that Elon Musk and fellow Trump acolyte Vivek Ramaswamy would spearhead efforts to shrink the federal government through DOGE — a winking reference to a joke cryptocurrency — and conclude their work by July 4, 2026. The duo is already making some of their thoughts about American education and the Education Department known on social media.

— “Our Dept of Education blows $$ without accountability. Unelected bureaucrats are the core problem. DOGE is coming,” Ramaswamy posted on X in November.

— Of the two DOGE leaders, Ramaswamy has made the most public remarks about education. He has asserted that education should be funded by state and local governments, “not the feds,” and returning that responsibility to the states is part of a “key solution to our federal deficit problem.”

— Ramaswamy most recently highlighted a post from Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice that included worrying statistics of students' reading and math performances from the NAEP, known as the nation’s report card.

“This is a 5-alarm fire & President Trump’s vision to dismantle the Department of Education is the first step to fixing it,” he wrote. “The federal bureaucracy has wasted boatloads of taxpayer $$ while impeding the success of our students. The statistics below are downright brutal.”

— Musk, on the other hand, has been more curt in his posts. He has blamed failures in education on increases in administrative staff in schools and has said the nation must “fix the woke mind virus infection in education.”

“American education has been broken for a quarter century,” he wrote in December.

IT’S MONDAY, JAN. 6. WELCOME TO WEEKLY EDUCATION. Let’s grab coffee. Drop me a line at bquilantan@politico.com. Send tips to my colleagues Rebecca Carballo at rcarballo@politico.com, Mackenzie Wilkes at mwilkes@politico.com and Juan Perez Jr. at jperez@politico.com. And follow us: @Morning_Edu and @POLITICOPro.

YOUR NEXT WATCH: Meet Linda McMahon, Trump's Education secretary pick.

Want to receive this newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You’ll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day’s biggest stories.

Congress

JOHNSON’S AGENDA — Newly reelected Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday vowed to pass a budget reconciliation package through Congress and have it on Trump’s desk by the end of April.

— Johnson said Trump is going to prefer “one big, beautiful bill” that would include Trump’s priorities on immigration and border enforcement, tax reform, energy and (potentially) the debt limit. Meanwhile, several top Republicans — from Senate Majority Leader John Thune to incoming White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller — are pushing for a two-bill strategy, which means first passing a border and energy permitting bill before moving on to tax reform.

In an interview on “Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo,” Johnson said House Republicans gathered for roughly nine hours at Fort McNair to discuss their reconciliation agenda. He wants a House vote on the bill the first week of April, and definitely no later than before Memorial Day, May 26.

“We'll be working long, long hours with whiteboards making sure every Republican is on board,” Johnson said Sunday. “Remember, I'll be dealing with the smallest margin in US history for much of the first 100 days.”

ICYMI — The House voted on a rules package for the new Congress on Friday that tees up floor consideration of a bill related to Title IX athletics compliance: Florida Republican Rep. Greg Steube’s “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025.”

The House passed the bill last year along party lines, but it stalled in a Democrat-controlled Senate.

— “Title IX was created to give women and girls equal access to education and sports. Unfortunately, the intent of Title IX is under direct assault from the radical left,” House Education and Workforce Chair Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) said in a statement. “Allowing biological males to compete against women jeopardizes competition and fair play, both critical tenets of sports.”

— Other education matters: The House Education and the Workforce Committee is getting a slight name change, our Mackenzie Wilkes reports. The rules package renames the panel to just "House Education and Workforce Committee," dropping “the.”

IN THE STATES

FLORIDA’S THRIVING ‘CLASSICAL EDUCATION’ — Florida is becoming an incubator for private and public classical schools, a schooling model that is increasing in popularity among conservatives nationally, POLITICO’s Andrew Atterbury reports.

The schooling approach emphasizes liberal arts and western teachings on math, science, civics and classical texts that have increasingly been embraced by conservatives and some Christians.

— “Classical education is really booming,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a bill signing in April. “And it’s something that is, to me, as a policymaker, … very beneficial.”

“Classical really recaptures what’s been lost in some of the political mumbo jumbo that we’ve seen over many decades infiltrate our universities and our K-12 school system,” the GOP governor added.

— With a second Trump administration coming, there are expected to be more opportunities for classical education to grow nationally, such as through the 161 schools operated by the Department of Defense. It’s seen by some proponents as a counter to what schools are teaching students on social issues like race and gender ideology. Critics of this schooling model, though, charge it whitewashes history.

Syllabus

— Low-income, religious schools, urban areas: Who benefits from Idaho school choice?: The 74

— Syria’s new Islamic government creates controversy with education overhaul: The Wall Street Journal

— VA expands education benefits by a year for qualifying veterans with multiple enlistments: Stars and Stripes

— How can higher education help democracy? By boosting civic participation, this group says: Colorado Public Radio

Follow us on Twitter