Now that the American people have spoken and decided this Donald J. Trump will be both the 45th and 47th presidents of the United States, it’s time for elected officials to set priorities. For parents and children across the country, some of the most important and impactful decisions the new administration will make will deal with education policy, and there is certainly much work to be done in that area.

We as a country need to wake up and realize that our the current approach to education is not working. High school math scores have fallen and lag behind many other developed countries. We are not doing much better on a global scale in either science or reading. Civics scores for middle school students are alarmingly low, and many students come to college without knowing basic facts about American civics. Meanwhile, America spends an average of more than $15,000 per student on K-12 public education, more than any other country except Luxembourg.

Given that Trump, along with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Elon Musk, has expressed his intention to take over the federal bureaucracy in Washington, DC, for starters, he should train his views on the Department of Education, and indicated that he will do so.

TRUMP PLAN TO MOVE CONTROL OF SCHOOL FUNDING TO LOCAL COMMUNITIES, DOE SECRETARY YET TO BE PICKED

Currently, the Department of Education acts primarily as a clearinghouse for federal dollars that flow through the administration to state and local education systems. On paper, this doesn’t seem so objectionable to most people, and may even seem necessary. After all, someone in the federal government has to carry out the education policies passed by Congress.

President-elect Donald Trump has a chance to replace an education system that is failing students. FILE: Trump arrives at an election night party at the Palm Beach Convention Center, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Evan Vucci/AP)

However, he who pays the driver chooses the tune. In the case of the federal government, the power to write checks gives bureaucrats and politicians in Washington the power to dictate policies that oppose state governments, local school boards and parents. Perhaps the most egregious examples of this power were the Obama Education Department’s transgender bathroom edict and The efforts of the Biden administration to use Title IX to redefine the word “female” to include biological males.

But while examples like these attract the most media attention and political pushback, they are only the visible tip of the iceberg. When a department has hundreds of billions of dollars at its disposal that cross 50 states, federal territories and the District of Columbia, there are thousands of decisions made by unelected bureaucrats every day that impact our country’s various education systems. These decisions will reverberate thousands of miles away in communities they will never visit, classrooms they will never see, and students they will never meet.

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However many degrees and certifications a teacher or administrator can accumulate, there is no technical knowledge that can replace the direct knowledge that parents have about their children. There is no qualification that can replace the natural rights that parents have when it comes to educating their own children.

For those who wonder how school systems would navigate such a potentially chaotic change like eliminating a federal department, counter that there are indeed ways to do it, such as blocking funding to states for a particular period of time until legislatures can come together and work out their own approaches.

However, we must keep in mind that eliminating a federal department would require some action by Congress, and without 60 seats in the Senate, this plan could hit a wall. In such a case, the next good way to bypass red tape would be for Trump to provide universal school choice at the federal level, allowing federal education dollars to follow individual students.

Would this — combined with his promise to provide funding to students who opt out of government education — be the most monumental federal change to parents’ rights in education in a decade — or even decades?

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This approach would allow parents to escape the grip of the education cartel (made up of bureaucrats, politicians and union bosses) by freeing up the main point of leverage it uses to keep students trapped in the system: money. This would open new frontiers for innovative educational models, protect parents’ rights, and allow educators to refocus their energies on providing children with the kinds of education they need for the demands of the labor market and the responsibilities of American citizenship.

There is nothing progressive or innovative about going in the wrong direction, regardless of the original intentions behind the endeavor. We as a nation have a tremendous opportunity here to make positive changes for parents, students and taxpayers by getting rid of a system — something that has failed us for decades — and getting back to what works.

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