I wrote this on March 20, the day that President Trump issued his executive order to dismantle the Department of Education. While patently illegal – only Congress can end an agency it created – Trump aims to demolish the department and then say Congress needs to take out the rubble. Destroying DOE has been on the docket for this administration since the first day. But it has been on the wishlist of the right for the past 40 years, since Ronald Reagan was president and conservatism started its move toward a political place of enabling and defending an authoritarian leader who seems at war on a daily basis with democracy, free speech and the public good.
In his famous essay from 1945, "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell (he of "1984" fame) argued that "in our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible … designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
You may hear about "waste, fraud and abuse" and "returning power to the states" and, as the title of the executive order cynically says, "improving education outcomes by empowering parents, states, and communities."
But we as educators will not succumb to this abuse of language and the insult to our minds. It is crucially important to be clear about what we face.
Like Viktor Orbán, the dictator in Hungary, and authoritarians all over the world over the past century, Trump and his ilk intend to eviscerate public education. They seek to destroy what we believe is the foundation of democracy – free, universal public education that nurtures future adults who know truthful history, celebrate a diverse nation, and gain the knowledge and skills to be successful members of society, critical thinkers and active citizens. All those qualities are existential threats to authoritarian regimes, who seek docile citizens who have been filled with propaganda.
We are right to be infuriated and frightened and anxious – for our students, for our members and for our society.
But here are some of the scenes that went through my mind in rapid succession after I turned away from the reprehensible news:
I thought, as I often do, of the enormous privilege of having grown up in Amherst, nurtured and educated by the educators of the Amherst-Pelham Education Association, and then able to gift that experience to my three children.
I thought of the stunning victories against vouchers in deep-red Kentucky and Nebraska this past November, and the fact that two-thirds of Americans don’t want to end the Department of Education, because it protects and supports students with disabilities, low-income students, and students seeking to get a college degree or a vocational education.
Public education, one of our nation’s greatest commitments, was invented here in Massachusetts.
This is our heritage, and whose tradition you all carry forward. We were the first, and remain the finest, despite all that is challenging you and your schools and colleges today. We will not give up on a nearly 400-year heritage, especially to a tech oligarch and his MAGA client.
We will not give up the freedom to learn and the freedom to teach.
Max Page, MTA President
