Word has spread about Project 2025 and its Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, some of it accurate, some of it not. That’s not surprising; nobody really wants to read an entire 900-page policy document, and some of that document hints at more than it explicitly says.
What does the document actually have to say about education? Let’s take a deep breath and read carefully.
Education in the Foreword
Some of the broadest promises are laid out by Kevin Roberts (Heritage Foundation) in the foreword, where the first promise is to “restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.”
Roberts calls for “deleting” a list of terms starting with “sexual orientation and gender identity” as well as “diversity, equity and inclusion,” “reproductive rights,” and a host of similar terms. It’s not clear how he proposes that “deleting” would occur, but through the 900 pages it becomes clear that the federal government would stop using them.
Roberts also calls for the criminalization of pornography and the imprisonment of any person who produce and distribute it; “Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders.” No specific definition of pornography is included.
Roberts demands that “parents’ rights” are non-negotiable and that “States, cities and counties, school boards, union bosses, principals, and teachers who disagree should be immediately cut off from federal funds.”
He declares “parental authority” central to policy, and in that context makes the call for vouchers clear, calling it “a goal all conservatives and conservative Presidents must pursue.”
The education chapter was written by Lindsey Burke, chief of the Heritage Center’s Center for Education Policy. She’s also works at EdChoice, a school choice advocacy group formerly named after Milton Friedman, and she was part of Governor Glenn Youngkin’s transition team in 2021.
Burke leads off with some broad goals, including the elimination of the Department of Education and the goal that “families and students should be free to choose from a diverse set of school options and learning environments.” She salutes Friedman’s ideal, with education publicly funded but “education decisions are made by families.” She points to state leadership where the “future of education freedom and reform is bright and will shine brighter when regulations and red tape from Washington are eliminated.”
Federal money comes with federal rules and regulations attached. Burke proposes that federal dollars come to the states as block grants with no rules or regulations attached. She nods to the characterization of the department that runs through the whole document—a department born of a deal between Jimmy Carter and the National Education Association, attractive because it gave certain people a way to extend their influence via federal power and “continuously expand federal expenditures.” The federal education infrastructure has been “[b]olstered by an ever-growing cabal of special interests that thrive off federal largesse.”
Burke proposes several core principles to guide the next administration.
Advancing education freedom. The administration could give more families more options by way of “portability of existing federal education spending to fund families.” In other words, take the money DC sends to the states and distribute it to families as vouchers.
Burke suggests federal tax credit scholarships, the same voucher program unsuccessfully pushed by Betsy DeVos during her tenure as education secretary. Burke also notes that the federal government could immediately put universal vouchers in place for “federal” children (i.e. military families, DC residents, and members of sovereign tribes.
Turn federal funding into grants to the states “over which they have full control.” Let the states use the funds for “any lawful educational purpose,” regardless of what the original federal intent might have been.
College loans should be handled by private lenders and treated as investments. Students should pay the loans back, and politicians must not be allowed to interfere just to score some political points.
Civil rights must be safeguarded, which in this case means rights “based on a proper understanding of those laws, rejecting gender ideology and critical race theory.”
Policy should be set by Congress, and neither the President (through executive orders) nor agencies (through regulation and guidance).
Burke also suggests some reforms.
She wants to address administrative “bloat,” arguing that the federal Department of Education has spawned a “shadow” department of state-level education employees through the “labyrinthian nature of federal education programs.” She calls for a Department of Education Reorganization Act to “reform, eliminate, or move” programs. (That name calls back to the Department of Education Organization Act that established the department.)
Title I is the program that sends federal dollars to buttress lower-income school districts. Burke recommends that these dollars to be turned into block grants that the states should use to fund vouchers. By the end of the decade, the federal program should be eliminated and “states should assume decision-making control over how to provide a quality education to children from low-income families.” In other words, Title I would disappear and states would have to figure out how to replace the funding and pick up the slack themselves.
Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) funds, like Title I funding, should become a no-strings block grant to states. IDEA is supposed to cover 40% of states’ special education costs.
The various offices of the departments should either be eliminated or be moved into a different department. For instance, the department’s Office of Civil Rights should have its work moved to the Department of Justice.
Burke also has a list of rules and regulations that she wants to see eliminated.
The Biden administration tightened the rules for giving grants to charter schools; Burke would like to reverse that. She would like the Office of Civil Rights to stop collecting gender data that includes “nonbinary” as a category. She would like to undo loan forgiveness. And while the Biden changes to Title IX hadn’t taken place yet when this document was written, Burke wanted to roll back what changes had started to recognize anything other than gender as anything other than gender at birth.
The Project also wants to undo the shift in Title VI that looked at school discipline for “disparate impact” (i.e. considering if a school disproportionately punished minority students).
Burke characterizes school meal programs as “some of the most wasteful federal programs in Washington.” But she especially objects to the feds withholding those funds from schools that insist on holding to “gender at birth” rather than “sexual orientation and gender identity” language.
Other recommendations.
Burke calls on Congress to rescind the National Education Association’s charter, and members should hold hearings to see how much federal taxpayer money the NEA has used for radical causes. And she has a whole assortment of recommendations for keeping critical race theory out of classrooms.
Burke argues that parental rights are treated as “second-tier,” and she would like to see them legislated into a “top-tier” position with rights like free speech and free exercise of religion. Every proposed rule should undergo strict scrutiny to make sure it doesn’t infringe on parental rights. Burke calls for a private right of action, so that parents who think institutions have violated their rights may sue. She recommends a federal law similar to those already passed in some states such as Florida and Oklahoma.
Federal law should require school staff to out LGBTQ students to their parents, and no school staff should be allowed to address a student by anything other than the gender and name on their birth certificate without parental approval. However, if staff member objects, those parents do not have the right to insist their child be addressed by their chosen name or gender.
No mention here of students’ rights.
States should be free to opt out of any federal education program, but still collect the funds as a grant they can use as they please.
Outside the chapter.
In the chapter for the Department of Defense, there is a proposal that all students in schools that receive federal funding be required to take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery; this to improve recruiter “access” to candidates.
The Department of Agriculture chapter advocates for making it harder for schools to qualify for free school meals, and resist attempts to create universal free meal programs.
So what do we have here.
There are several major threads when it comes to K-12 education.
Vouchers, vouchers, vouchers. Eliminate the federal Department of Education, and turn the money for Title I and IDEA into block grants that states can use for anything education-adjacent (but Heritage is hoping it will be for vouchers), with Title I ending within a decade.
That is no small potatoes. In 2022, Title I amounted to over $16 billion. IDEA is underfunded according to the targets set by law, but it still accounts for roughly $13 billion.
Project 2025 is also deeply concerned about LGBTQ issues as well as other culture war issues. In discussion of virtually all issues, they make certain to demand an end to so much as mentioning Certain Terms. Project 2025 is deeply committed to reinforcing the traditional nuclear family and a government that treats that family as the only proper way to live. Such policies would have large implications for a public school system that is unavoidably diverse.
Heritage published their first Mandate for Leadership in 1981 and has made many similar attempts since; this is the 9th edition. If implemented, it would visit considerable disruption to our public education system, which is, of course, the point. We will have to wait another six months to see if ninth time’s a charm.
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Peter Greene