Project 2025 calls for the following in education. 

 

P25 advocates the abolition of the federal Department of Education created in 1867 , and the end of federal funding for K12 education in America. Canadians might say, so what, in Canada, provinces provide the only funding for K12 education, due to our Constitution.  Americans However, treat federal funding of education the way Canadians fund healthcare. The individual states, like our provinces, have the primary responsibility to fund and control education, but the “feds” under Title 1, offer extra funding, with strings attached, such as meeting federal non- discrimination criteria, and extra funding to uplift schools with at least 40% poor students, like Project Head Start to give poor kids a running start with ECE/literacy programs. P25, wants to send block grants to states that they can use to increase funding for private and religious schools. This will cost about 180 000 teaching jobs and affect 800 000 kids. Critics expect Trump to immediately nullify Title IX provisions which extend anti-discrimination protection to LGBTQ students. He may have problems. Elimination of DoE will take 12 votes in the Senate, due to the filibuster, and Trump is 10 votes short. P25 calls for putting an end to teachers’ unions' ability to advocate on behalf of students or the teaching profession, limiting their activities to collective bargaining. According to the Brookings Institute, the objective is to promote universal private school choice. They would also privatize the student loan program, a boondoggle for the banks. 

 

One of the interesting contradictions arises from rural, poor, white areas. Greg Abbott the Texas governor has been determined to totally privatize Texas education but has run up against the stanchly GOP, poor rural white folks and their advocates, often rural pastors, who have noticed a total lack of interest in profit oriented voucher advocates because there is no money in it. 

 

Poor kids in America are not simply urban black and Latino kids. The American South plus West Virginia and some of the Plains states are full of poor white kids who totally change the dynamics of the situation from a race issue into a class issue. On one hand, 17.8% of black children under 18 are poor, 21.7% of Hispanics kids are poor, and only 8% of white kids are poor but when you put that in raw numbers, that means 3 million poor white kids, 2 million poor black kids, and 4 million poor Hispanic kids. When the USA asks the OECD, that directs PISA international testing, why USA is number 18 in the rankings with a higher GDP/capita they are told to look at your distribution of wealth by quintiles. The USA has more childhood poverty than any other developed nation. 

 

Political strategists understand that when your opponent makes a big move which you oppose, you look into your opponents coalition for those elements who might be harmed, and therefore cause splits for their coalition. In simple terms, P25 authors are setting out to defund support for poor, urban, black kids but the action sideswipes poor, rural, white kids, who’s parents are a major part of the Trump and MAGA coalition.

 

 In a late breaking item, Trump has chosen Linda McMahon as education secretary adding to the exotic cabinet Of Tulsi Gabbard, Robert Kennedy, Matt Gaetz, Dr Oz, and the rest of the clown car. McMahon was a wrestling executive of the preposterous WWE, founded by her husband Vince McMahon. Her job is to dismantle the Department of Education and return it to the states.  It's an insult to education and we have to believe that it was intentional. 

 

Project 2025 and Canadian education

Many Canadians noticed when Tucker Carlson visited Canada to 

give a speech in Calgary, and was photographed with Danielle Smith, Conrad Black and Jordan Peterson. The ties are running both more broadly and deeply. Stephen Harper is the “Chairman” (their term) of the International Democracy Union which is the International umbrella of conservative parties, from center right to far right. It was founded by Margret Thatcher. Various private think tanks extend invitations back and forth across the border to each other to discuss policy, politics, strategy and experiences. All three major Canadian parties hire American pollsters and political strategists. We might look to Alberta as the laboratory of American education policy, on privatization, vouchers and social conservative intrusion in education. With a handful of extra Conservative seats, BC would possibly have joined this club. Just 22 votes in Surrey BC gave David Eby’s NDP the one seat majority government that can resist this direction for a few more years. 

 

Conservatives do not all have identical priorities, but mirroring the democratic progressive movement, they have factions which require alliances and trade offs to maximize electoral success. Libertarian conservatives are free market fundamentalists, They have swallowed Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayak whole. Poilievre is a devotee. They want privatization. The social conservatives want both religious schools, the more, the better and religious based curriculum in all schools. In their most virulent form, Christo Fascists are opposed to any equity seeking curriculum or even this simple truth if it makes their children 

“uncomfortable”. The social conservative, Charles McVety comes to mind, along with other anti-bortion, anti-feminist, anti-LGBTQ+ types. Conservatives know they need to coddle these folks but fear allowing them to either drive the bus, or break off and start their own party. McVety wanted Doug Ford to fund a Christian university. Christians are not the only religious fundamentalists in Canada. Muslims, Jews, Hindus and others also want their own schools. Fortunately, former Ontario Tory leader, John Tory tried to do this all at once in Ontario, and lost badly, In 2007. Conservatives now take a more incrementalist approach, as you see in Alberta.

 

In conclusion, what are the ultimate objectives of conservatives in education? Project 2025 spells it out, privatization for private profits, and religious indoctrination of conservative ideology - nothing less. Canadian parents support their public school, which gives conservatives pause, but they still take every opportunity to press any temporary advantage. In short, the playbook is clear - privatize as much as possible of the education system, perhaps leave some public schools for kids in public housing. The curriculum, public and private, is to be patriotic, nationalist, religious, pro-business, and socially conservative, to the greatest extent they can get away with.