Trump Completes Massive Roll Back of Obama Era Policy

Trump Common Core

In K-12 education, the cost burden is shared about equally between the Federal government, and State and local governments. Approximately 47 percent of K-12 spending nationally comes from State funds.

While the Federal government is providing about half the funding, they have far more than half the control. Education has been centralized in the hands of the Federal government since Jimmy Carter created the Department of Education in 1979.

Certain policies of the Barack Obama administration only further strengthened the Federal government’s stranglehold on education, with the most egregious example being the implementation of incomprehensible “Common Core” standards.

You’ve probably seen an unnecessarily confusing Common Core math problem before, and given that Common Core cost $4.5 billion to start, it’s clear that those administering the program ain’t all too great at math themselves.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order that aimed to combat various instances of government overreach in education, just over a year ago.

According to the Washington Times, reporting on the order back in April of 2017:

President Trump signed an executive order to start pulling the federal government out of K-12 education, following through on a campaign promise to return school control to state and local officials.
The order, dubbed the “Education Federalism Executive Order,” will launch a 300-day review of Obama-era regulations and guidance for school districts and directs Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to modify or repeal measures she deems an overreach by the federal government.

The order has been dubbed the “Education Federalism Executive Order.”

“For too long the government has imposed its will on state and local governments. The result has been education that spends more and achieves far, far, far less,” Mr. Trump said. “My administration has been working to reverse this federal power grab and give power back to families, cities [and] states — give power back to localities.”

The review of existing regulations will be conducted by the Department of Education’s Regulatory Review Task Force, according to the order.

Now, one year later. Common Core regulations have been effectively repealed at the Federal level. Betsy DeVos declared as much at the start of the year, that “At the U.S. Department of Education, Common Core is dead.”

Some States have their own individually-designed versions of Common Core still implemented, but that’s still perfectly in line with the kind of Federalism that Trump is promoting. If their own versions of Common Core don’t work, they can simply change them. They didn’t have that option previously.

Are you glad to see Common Core out the door? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!

By Matt

Matt is the co-founder of Unbiased America and a freelance writer specializing in economics and politics. He’s been published... More about Matt

Mentioned in this article: