DETROIT (WXYZ) — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday to begin the process of dismantling the Department of Education.
While many Michigan education leaders and Democrats worry about the drastic cuts and reshuffling of programs, the Michigan Republican Party says it's an opportunity to decrease spending and give education authority back to the states.
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The federal Department of Education manages student loans for millions of Americans, supports programs for students with disabilities and enforces laws regarding civil rights in the education system.
The president has stated he wants individual states to oversee their education departments individually.
While the Department of Education cannot fully be eradicated without Congressional approval, the president can and already has begun to defund it, and Michiganders have very different takes about how this would change the education system.
Detroit Public Schools Community District Superintendent Nikolai Vitti, Ph.D., says he’s not surprised over the move but is concerned.
"I think my concern is more about having an extra layer of accountability and monitoring for students with special needs, on issues of race, issue of language and gender, things like that. Now, that will fall on states," Vitti said. "I do think it's important for the federal government to provide vision resources and offer a level of accountability. Just simply giving that to 50 individual states, I don't think it's gonna lead to the kind of results that we're hearing from a rhetorical point of view."
Trump has stated that the federal government would continue to provide critical functions like federal student aid and funding for districts with high levels of poverty. He says those responsibilities would be passed on to other federal agencies, like the Small Business Association handling student loans.
"Trying to experiment with our children like this is not the way forward," Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib said. "If you wanna fix education in our country, let's talk about really, fully funding it at the level it needs to be."
The president has continued to claim that the dismantling of the department would return authority back to the states. Michigan GOP Chair Jim Runestad says the programs would now be more tailored to what the state needs.
"This is going to make a huge improvement in education, getting the parents and the local schools the money and not some isolated bureaucrat," he said.
However, Vitti says the move would disrupt critical programs funding that his district and other districts rely on.
"I'm concerned about the dismantling of the Department of Ed., but I think that's only the first step into eventually cutting K-12 funding. All the signs point to that," the superintendent said.
Detroit public schools parents say while they still have many questions and exact details haven't been made clear, all they can do for now is focus on what’s happening at the local level, stay involved and stay informed.
"Of course, it’s kind of fearful because it’s the unknown," DPSCD parent Aliya Moore said. “It is really imperative now for the community to get involved. Just because the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education, we still have a Michigan Department of Education, we still have local officials, we still have a school board."
