Trump Admin Calls 'Education Freedom' Giving States Less Money for Schools
The Trump administration's Education Secretary Linda McMahon, formerly of WWE fame, is lauded by AP for 'loosening strings' on federal education money for Iowa. This, the article suggests, is a noble quest to 'remove the federal government from local education.' What the AP fails to connect is that this 'flexibility' often translates into defunding public education and diverting resources
elsewhere. The very same administration sought to slash federal education budgets by billions of dollars annually, proposing cuts of up to 10% from the Department of Education, as detailed in their 2018 budget proposals—moves that would effectively gut programs supposedly now being 'freed.' So, while Iowa gets the 'freedom' to reallocate its meager scraps, one might wonder if true liberation is
found in states having more control over drastically reduced federal contributions. It appears 'returning education to the states' is less about empowerment and more about ensuring federal coffers are robust for other endeavors, like, say, military aid packages—which historically face far less 'string loosening' for their intended recipients. (Perhaps education could benefit from an AIPAC-style
lobbying effort.)