A majority of American parents favor “reducing the size and influence of the U.S. Department of Education,” according to a poll released Monday by Parents Defending Education (PDE).
PDE, which self-described as a grassroots organization “working to reclaim our schools from activists who impose harmful programs,” found that 52 percent of parents opposed the Department of Education’s cuts. Forty-five percent oppose it, while three percent are unsure.
Republican parents (67 percent) and independent parents (53 percent) are more likely than Democratic parents (29 percent) to support reducing the size and influence of the department, according to the survey.
By ethnicity, a majority of all groups except black parents (37%) favor a reduction in the Department of Education.
The investigation comes before Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20 and after he repeatedly promised during the election campaign to abolish the Department of Education. (which was created 45 years ago under President Jimmy Carter) and return power to individual states and communities.
In August 2023, during in an X Spaces interview with Elon Musk, Trump highlighted that education in the United States is performing well tumble compared to other developed countries, even if the United States spent “more per student than any other country in the world.”
“I want to close the Department of Education – bring education back to the states…” Trump told Musk, CEO of Tesla and owner of X/Twitter.
In July 2024, Trump said:
And another thing I will do very early in the administration is close the Department of Education in Washington, D.C., and send all the education work and needs back to the United States. We want them to take care of our children’s education, because they will be much better at it. You can’t do worse. We spend three times more money per student than any other country. And yet, we are absolutely at the bottom. We are one of the worst. So you can’t do worse. We are going to end education in Washington DC. We’re going to close all these buildings everywhere, and (you have) people who, in many cases, hate our children. We will ship everything back to the United States.
The PDE survey also found that 77 percent of parents support “a U.S. Department of Education that allows states to have more flexibility in how they run their school districts.”
This sentiment is supported by a strong majority of parents of all political affiliations, including 85 percent of Republican parents, 77 percent of independent parents and 67 percent of Democratic parents.
Parents are closely divided over how the Department of Education uses its resources. Forty-eight percent of parents agree and 50 percent disagree that the department is “appropriately using its resources to help advance the education of students across America” .
Democratic parents are the only ones (68%) who agree, while only 38% of Republican parents think the same, followed by 48% of independent parents.
A majority of parents agree that “focusing on core subjects, such as math, reading, writing, science and social studies, would improve the quality of public education.” Ninety percent of American parents surveyed say they agree with the above statement, including 92 percent of Republican parents, 88 percent of Independent parents, and 91 percent of Democratic parents.
This discovery comes after The Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE), led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, drew attention to PDE figures showing how the The Department of Education spent $1 billion to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in schools.
The breakdown of the PDE revealed that in total, from 2021 to present, $1,002,522,304.81 in grants have been awarded.
According to DOGE, $489,883,797 was spent on what it described as “race-based hiring.” Another $343,337,286 was spent on “DEI programs” and another $169,301,221 was used on “DEI mental health initiatives.”
Nicole Neily, president of the PDE, said in a statement that the survey results “point out that parents are dissatisfied with a number of elements of the modern American education system – and that there is broad consensus that it is time for schools to go back to basics.”
“For too long, federal bureaucrats have sacrificed the needs of students and their families in order to appease the insatiable demands for money and power of unions and activists,” Neily added. “January 20 can’t come soon enough.”
The survey was conducted by CRC Research among 1,000 parents with children aged 18 or younger in their household between December 12 and 18, 2024. The margin of error is ±3.10 percentage points.
Katherine Hamilton is a politics reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on @thekat_hamilton.
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