AMY GOODMAN: President Trump signed an executive order Thursday to start dismantling the Department of Education, though the agency can’t be formally shut down without congressional approval. Since taking office, Trump has already slashed the department’s workforce in half and cut $600 million in grants. Trump’s executive order instructs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin shutting down the agency.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: My administration will take all lawful steps to shut down the department. We’re going to shut it down and shut it down as quickly as possible. It’s doing us no good. We want to return our students to the states, where just some of the governors here is so happy about this. They want education to come back to them, to come back to the states. And they’re going to do a phenomenal job.

AMY GOODMAN: For the signing ceremony, Trump created a fake classroom inside the White House, flanked by schoolchildren sitting at desks. They were given fake executive orders to sign, as well.

Many groups have criticized the move to shut down the department. Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, said, quote, “Let’s be clear: Before federal oversight, millions of children — particularly those with disabilities and those from our most vulnerable communities — were denied the opportunities they deserved,” she said. Gerald Griggs, the president of Georgia’s NAACP, also criticized Trump’s move.

GERALD GRIGGS: Everybody says they want to support children, they have a right to life. But what happens after they’re born? They have to be educated. And if you’re cutting the Department of Education, whose sole purpose is to provide a quality education for all of Americans, but particularly those that are in public schools, I think this is ill-fated and will be very detrimental to this state and the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: The White House says several critical programs will continue, including student loans and federal Pell Grants.

We go now to Gloucester, Massachusetts. We’re joined by Jennifer Berkshire, co-author of the book The Education Wars: A Citizen’s Guide and Defense Manual. She’s also host of the education podcast Have You Heard. Her recent piece for The Baffler is headlined “Cruel to Your School: Trump’s war on public education.”

Jennifer Berkshire, thanks so much for being with us. Why don’t you start off by explaining what the Department of Education does?

JENNIFER BERKSHIRE: Well, first of all, thanks so much for having me.

And when it comes to the Department of Education, it’s so easy to venture into the weeds and to get lost in those programs and the acronyms. But when you quoted Keri Rodrigues, she was exactly right. Those programs, things like Title I, they were set up in order to smooth out the vast disparities that we’ve long had in this country, the disparities between kids based on race, where they live. And so, the Department of Education provides 10% of education funding around the country, primarily to low-income schools and rural schools.

And when you think about the real focus of the efforts of the Trump administration to weed out what they would call woke or DEI, this is really it. It’s anything that the government does to make the country more equal. That’s why they’re going straight at these programs, and it’s also why public education as an institution is so vulnerable right now.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about children with disabilities. You know, there’s the whole discussion of DEI, of diversity, equity and inclusion, but it really actually is DEIA — diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. Can you explain, Jennifer?

JENNIFER BERKSHIRE: Yes, absolutely. So, people don’t realize just how recent it is in this country that students with disabilities are guaranteed the right for a free and appropriate education. You can still meet people who came of age in the '70s and had, you know, siblings who didn't have — a school could just turn them away because they had a disability. And because we have a law on the books called IDEA — Linda McMahon did not know what it stands for, but it is the Individual with Disabilities Education Act. And so, basically, students have a right, that’s enforced through the Department of Education.

And so, it’s no coincidence at all that in those layoffs that you mentioned, they went really hard at the division that enforces civil rights. The overwhelming majority of civil rights complaints are from parents who are seeking services and access for kids with disabilities. And basically, the department is saying now, “You know what? We are no longer going to enforce your right. Instead, we’re going to turn what’s left of our civil rights division into a sort of a weaponized lean machine that goes after alleged acts of antisemitism,” and then also things that they suspect of having to do with gender ideology.

AMY GOODMAN: And Trump vowing to fully preserve popular programs like Pell Grants?

JENNIFER BERKSHIRE: That was a real tell, I thought, that you heard him talk about preserving programs that the Department of Education now oversees, things like Title I and funding for special education and Pell Grants, because he knows that getting rid of these programs would be very politically unpopular. And so he’s sort of talking about it in the same way that they’re talking about Social Security and Medicare. Like, we see them offstage mucking about, but we’re being assured that there won’t be any interruption in essential services.

But as we know from reading the playbook — that would be Project 2025 — the goal is not to continue to spend the same amount of money but just in a different way; it’s ultimately to phase out spending. It’s to privatize the loan portfolio and make it more difficult and more expensive for kids to go to college. And these are things that I think are really unpopular with American voters across party lines, which is why you don’t hear the Trump folks really, you know, admitting where their ultimate destination is.

AMY GOODMAN: Jennifer Berkshire, how does this executive order fit into the broader war on public education?

JENNIFER BERKSHIRE: It was really telling to see who Trump picked to join him in that weird scene where he signed the order. So, you have the kids at the desk, but then you have some of his favorite governors. Now, why are they his favorite governors? Because they are all in states that either have or are in the process of implementing what are called universal school vouchers. So, this means that the state now picks up the tab for parents to send their kids to private religious schools. And most importantly, like, that money is not going to pay the cost of kids who are leaving public schools. It’s now going to pay the tuition for parents who already send their kids to private religious schools, which means that increasingly, in states like Ohio and Indiana, you have the government paying for the very wealthy to send their kids to private religious schools.

So, why would this be your vision? Because if Trump had wanted to assemble, you know, like, the states that are doing the best on, say, standardized tests, this would not be the crew you’d have. Right? Florida was so unhappy with how it fared on the latest round of what we call the Nation’s Report Card that the secretary of education wrote to complain that the test was rigged. And think about somebody like Indiana, your governors there. Indiana stopped investing in public education, K-12 and higher education, 15 years ago. And as a result, college attendance has plummeted, and the state is doing really poorly economically. I think it’s actually very indicative of where Trump sees us heading, which is to a sort of a meaner, less prosperous, more divided and inequitable future. And you saw it right there on that weird set.

AMY GOODMAN: And how this relates to Project 2025 and Christopher Rufo, Jennifer?

JENNIFER BERKSHIRE: Yeah. So, there, basically, they have laid out the playbook. And it’s really important to pay attention to what they’ve been telling us all along. I see so many commentators scratching their heads, wondering, you know, “What are they up to? Why are they focused on these programs?” But we’ve got, say, a Christopher Rufo out there saying that his goal is to see the percentage of kids who attend college drop by half. Right? That tells you something about the vision that’s out there.

When Trump talks about returning education to the states, he’s talking about the vision that was laid out in Project 2025. And that is really sending funding back to the states in the form of block grants that they can do whatever they want with. Well, we know what they want to do with the money, because we saw who was on that stage yesterday. They want to devote an increasing percentage of their education dollars to private and religious schools that don’t have to accept all kids. It’s a real step backwards, and it’s one that I think that we should all reject.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, what causes you most alarm as President Trump shutters — promises to shutter the Department of Education, though somehow needs congressional approval at the very end?

JENNIFER BERKSHIRE: What gives me most alarm is what a poor job the Democrats have been doing speaking up on behalf of public education as an institution and reminding us why we need it and what we stand to lose when it disappears. And I’m hoping that as we start to possibly see some signs of life among the Democrats, that they will lean into this issue. So, that both gives me hope, but it also causes me not a slight amount of despair right now.

AMY GOODMAN: Jennifer Berkshire, co-author of The Education Wars: A Citizen’s Guide and Defense Manual. We’ll link your new article in The Baffler, “Cruel to Your School: Trump’s war on public education.”

Coming up, an update on Mahmoud Khalil. The Columbia student protest leader now has spent two weeks in ICE detention. They’ve revoked his green card. We’ll also look at how the State Department is using AI, artificial intelligence, to identify pro-Palestinian foreign nationals to target for deportation. Stay with us.