Project 2025's Goals For Education

What is Project 2025?

Project 2025 is a presidential transition project to set the country on a path that resists leftist values. The goal is to promote the nuclear family, all states' self-governance, improve our military, and protect our “God-given” constitutional rights. Section 3 is titled “The General Welfare” and starts off with the goal of managing our national debt. It immediately discusses medicare and medicaid reform, as the authors know it is a hot topic. The author, Daren Bakst, is a Director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Energy and Environment at the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation is a non-profit organization that supports the implementation of conservative policy. They have funded this entire report.

The Project's Goals For Education:

Bakst’s ultimate goal for this department is its elimination, which has already been put into place this November. He asserts that power should be given back to the states, who must delegate to parents. Several offices have been moved or reduced, such as the Office of Civil Rights and the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. Title I, which provides federal funding for lower- income districts, is moved to the Department of Health and Human Services, while student aid programs are relocated to the Department of Defense Education Authority. Bakst states that Parents should have the ability to direct education by creating education savings accounts (ESAs) and you need their permission to use pronouns or preferred names. They are also given increased legal protection and support when litigating against schools for these issues, including financial support when needed. Finally, there should also be a special education option for “federal” children. 

School funding and student loans will be entirely restructured. Funding will be given to schools with no string attached and they have complete control over this money. The only stipulation mentioned is that schools cannot receive funding from China or Chinese interests. States will be allowed to opt out of federal education programs and put the capital towards “any lawful education purpose under state law (321).” Student loan providers must also be protected and borrowers must always be forced to pay back aid. Income-driven repayment plans should be removed because they are too generous and basically “delayed grant programs (337)” and if new legislation is possible, there should never be loan forgiveness, including consolidation loans.

Bakst also claims that the “federal government does not have the proper incentives to make sound lending decisions (339)” so private vendors should have control over student lending. Grad and parent PLUS loans will also be eliminated, because they are redundant. Finally, the public service loan forgiveness program should be ended and loans should only be discharged in cases of clear fraud. 

Limitations of certain grants and programs will be removed, such as The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which provides vouchers to low-income children. This should be expanded into a universal program (while being moved to the Department of Health and Human Services). The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) should also be expanded into a program that targets all students with disabilities. Admin should rescind regulations “that require states to consider race and ethnicity in the identification, placement, and discipline of students with disabilities” because this actually hurts minorities and more data should also be released on family structure, which will be used to inform policy decisions. Despite these expansions, meals focused on feeding all children will be reduced to help only those who are low-income. 

Education content also needs reviewing, and schools should not be forced to adopt Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies. “Assuring a safe and orderly school environment should be a primary consideration for school leaders and district administrators (334).”  Ideas like gender ideology and critical race theory should be completely rejected. Title X, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, will be rescinded and “sex” in future policy must be defined as “only biological sex recognized at birth (345).” Protections for faith based institutions will also be strengthened. 

In the meantime, the Office of Civil Rights should investigate all court decisions referring to gender identity or sexual expression, while dropping current ones. Employers cannot be required to use pronouns or preferred names if it conflicts with their moral or religious views, and schools should be free to remove any policy changes that were forced upon them during Biden’s presidency.  They will also receive little punishment from civil rights investigations (if any) and the “list of shame”, which publishes schools with violations, will be taken down.