Security stand in front of a pro-Israel protest at the University of Sydney on May 3, 2024. Picture: David Swift
Universities will be expected to publish de-identified complaints data publicly, make student complaints processes clearer, and analyse the data twice a year if the university regulator’s interim guidelines for student complaints mechanisms are adopted.
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A draft executive order obtained Thursday by Inside Higher Ed directs the newly confirmed education secretary, Linda McMahon, to “take all necessary steps” to return authority over education to the states and facilitate closure of the Department of Education “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.”
If signed, the order—which has been rumored for weeks but is not yet official—would be the first step in carrying out the president’s controversial campaign promise to abolish the 45-year-old department, which he believes is unconstitutional and has grown too large.
Several media outlets reported Wednesday night that Trump would sign the order as soon as Thursday, but shortly after the news circulated, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on X, “President Trump is NOT signing an Executive Order on the Department of Education today” and called the reports “fake news.”
Still, the reports set off a wave of comments from advocates and analysts. Liberals warned that shutting down the Education Department would be devastating for families and students, while conservatives backed Trump’s plan and said the draft order was key to cleaning up the agency.
McMahon, who took office Monday and will spearhead the closure effort, is supportive of overhauling the agency. She told department staff earlier this week to prepare for a “momentous final mission” to eliminate “bureaucratic bloat” and return education to the states.
Although vague, the secretary’s memo and the draft executive order give policy experts some idea of what could come next.
At the very least, they expect to see a major reduction in staff and a diminished federal role in education; some of that work is already underway. The agency has slashed millions in contracts and grants as well as fired dozens of employees. A larger reduction in force is also in the works, fueling concerns among department staff.
“There is probably not going to be anything in [the order] that isn’t already happening, largely,” said Kelly McManus, vice president of higher education at Arnold Ventures, a philanthropic group. “The secretary’s final mission was clear … so I’m not particularly worked up about the EO specifically, because I don’t think it’s going to fundamentally change that.”
Abolishing the department would require an act of Congress, which McManus said the draft order appears to acknowledge. She and other experts say any effort to close the department will be lengthy and complicated.
“This is not a flip-on, flip-off situation here,” she said. “Practically, there will have to be a process … You cannot shut the doors tomorrow and be done.”
The 416-word draft order gives little detail as to what the “steps” of dismantling the department are or what would happen to certain congressionally mandated programs such as the Pell Grant, the student loan system or the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act. However, the document does say that any funds allocated by the department should comply with federal law, including Trump’s previous orders on diversity, equity and inclusion and transgender athletes—both of which have been caught up in court.
Neither Trump nor McMahon has so far offered any plan outlining how closing the department would work, though some conservative plans recommend moving the Office for Federal Student Aid to the Treasury and sending the Office for Civil Rights to the Justice Department.
More than 4,000 people currently work for the department, which was created in 1979 and now has a $80 billion discretionary budget. Each year, the agency issues about $100 billion in student loans and doles out more than $30 billion in Pell Grants.
Shutting down the department isn’t popular with voters, recent surveys have found. One recent opinion poll found that 61 percent of all respondents “somewhat” or “strongly” opposed the idea of eliminating the department. Another showed that up to 72 percent either opposed the plan or weren’t sure how they felt. That number was 49 percent among Republicans.
Trump has signaled for months, if not years, that he wants to shut down the Education Department, and many analysts have already taken a position on the issue.
To Michael Brickman, an adjunct fellow at the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, nothing about the draft was a surprise. Like McManus, he noted that much of what the order directs McMahon to do is already underway.
Brickman expects the next steps will focus on finding new and “better” ways to maintain the department’s core functions as required under law with “less funding, less staff and possibly in conjunction with other agencies.”
“I don’t think anybody’s talking about cutting major programs,” he said, referencing financial aid services like the Pell Grant and disability protection acts like IDEA. “So the question will be, what is required under law? What can Congress change? And how can the department streamline things to minimize the footprint in D.C.?”
Shutting down the Education Department likely would be disruptive for colleges and students, advocates say.
J. David Ake/Getty Images
McManus stressed that it will be important to protect these core functions, especially the ones related to higher ed, saying it doesn’t make sense to send them back to the states.
“What is most important is that those core statutory functions have the people, capacity and expertise to be able to do effective oversight of how taxpayer dollars are being spent,” she said. “We are significantly less concerned about where those people sit, as long as there is the ability to safeguard taxpayer investments and to make sure that programs that are statutorily required and that have had long bipartisan support, like Pell Grants, are being effectively implemented.”
In Brickman’s view, some of the department’s regulatory operations, like analyzing and creating reports on grant or contract applicants and managing third-party accreditors, are simply “make-work.” By hiring hundreds of staff members to execute these tasks, he said, the department pulls tax dollars from local governments and then forces those same communities to spend more writing grant proposals to get it back.
“There’s just a lot of work and churn that evidence shows does not lead to improved student outcomes,” he said.
But when asked what the Trump administration has done to convince stakeholders he not only intends to tear down the department but also build it back up again, Brickman didn’t directly answer the question. Instead, he referenced actions of the Biden administration.
“The Biden administration broke the entire Federal Student Aid system on purpose … They were trying to illegally turn the trillion-plus-dollar portfolio from a loan program into a grant program,” he said. “That is not what the Trump administration is doing. The Trump administration has tried to improve these programs and make them actually work again.”
Although what Biden did was “unfortunate,” Brickman said, it also creates an opportunity.
“This mess isn’t being created; it’s being responded to,” he said. “I hope institutions that may be predisposed to oppose anything coming from the Trump administration will welcome this as the end of a failed experiment that just put more restrictions on teaching and learning.”
Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers, student advocacy groups, civil rights organizations and left-leaning think tanks warn that Trump has no intention of rebuilding, only dismantling. The American Federation of Teachers, a key higher ed union, said the order is a government attempt to “abdicate its responsibility to all children, students and working families.”
Randi Weingarten, the union’s president, recognized in a statement Wednesday night that there are certainly ways the department could be more efficient, but she implied that’s not Trump’s goal.
“No one likes bureaucracy, and everyone’s in favor of more efficiency, so let’s find ways to accomplish that,” she said. “But don’t use a ‘war on woke’ to attack the children living in poverty and the children with disabilities, in order to pay for vouchers and tax cuts for billionaires.”
Senate Democrats criticized the pending executive order to abolish the Department of Education as a press conference Thursday.
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images
Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington State, blasted the Trump administration’s plans at a press conference Thursday. She said that Trump and his unelected government efficiency czar Elon Musk “don’t know what it’s like to count on their local public school having the resources to get their kids a great education … And they don’t care to learn why. They want to break the department, break our government, and enrich themselves.”
To the American Association of University Professors, “dismantling the Department of Education would hasten us into a new dark age.”
Former Biden under secretary James Kvaal told Inside Higher Ed that the draft order should dispel any notion that Trump is not trying to shut down the department. But at the same time, he said, the GOP administration’s approach to doing so has been “schizophrenic” and “inconsistent.”
“It can’t be true that students of color and with disabilities will have their civil rights protected, but also the federal government is not going to be involved in those decisions,” he said.
But at the same time, Kvaal and others note that, ultimately, the Trump administration lacks the legal authority to actually close the Department of Education, making full abolishment more complicated than the president suggests.
Shuttering the agency would require 60 votes in the Senate as well as a majority in the House, as the department’s existence is written into statute. And with a 53-seat majority in the Senate, Republicans don’t currently have the votes unless some Democrats back the plan.
“[The Republicans] don’t have the votes to close the department, and they already plan to enforce their plans on DEI, so it’s not clear what the EO adds to that,” Kvaal said. “It’ll get sorted out in the courts.”
Foreign
Programs
One
way mid and lower level law schools compete with each other is by offering
foreign opportunities. In some cases the students can spend a semester studying
at a law school in France or Italy or Germany. They get a semester worth of
credit for traveling and drinking for 3 months. These are programs for the well
to do, of course because there are airfares, apartments to rent, etc. Nevertheless, they can be rewarding and informative.
On the other hand, summer abroad programs are a bit of a scam. These are essentially law schools acting as
travel agencies. The idea is that a couple of professors travel to Paris,
London, Rome or where ever and take 15 or twenty students with them. Then the
students hang out with each other, drink, travel, and spend a modest amount of
time in the classroom. They, of course,
pay extra for this and that extra is what covers the housing and expenses of
their teachers. In short, the students subsidize the summer vacation of the
profs and they, in turn, get academic credit. Their actual emersion in local
culture is kept to a minimum as they search out the closest McDonalds.
Now
that you know the background, you should know that one of the committees I am
chair of is the “Programs Committee”. A
summer program has to be OKed by the programs committee and then voted on by
the faculty. Very often it is a fait accompli. For example, one year at a mid summer faculty meeting 17 members
of the 60 person faculty voted by 9 to 8 to have a summer program in France.
Unusually only 2 faculty can go at a time but most deans also feel it is their duty to stop by, at the school’s expense, for a few days. And sometimes,
someone from the Programs Committee is also “obligated to go.” In the case of
the France program all 9 yes voters went at some point over the next three
years although at times the enrollment dwindled to 12 which was not enough to
cover their expenses.
Here
is the proposal the Programs Committee considered last October for
implementation next summer. I’ve inserted some information in brackets to help
you understand:
Re: Summer Program in Italy
Date: February 12, 2007
Supreme Senior Vice President of
Foreign Programs, Hugo Valencia and I [Chadsworth Feldman] are happy to propose
a new study abroad opportunity for our students. The details are as follows:
A. Location:
Three weeks in Rome, three weeks in
Florence.
B. Expected enrollment and student
costs.
For the first year, expected
enrollment is 30 but the actual enrollment can exceed this. The program has no
upper limit on enrollment. The initial tuition is $3,000 per student. This
includes all housing and transportation, to the extent those are necessary.
C. Need and
Opportunities
This program will complement our
other excellent foreign study opportunities. Many of our students have
expressed a desire to study in Italy and to learn Italian law. Many of our
colleagues have connections with scholars in Italy and would gain a great deal
with respect to their work in comparative law. It is critical that we have a
presence in Italy.
Several members of our faculty will
be invited to travel to Rome or Florence to serve as guest lecturers and to
attend graduation ceremonies at the end of the term.
D. Staffing.
Professor Feldman is the Director of
the Program and will go each year. In addition to the director, one other full
time professor will travel to the site. Two assistants will accompany the
professors. These will be the spouses of the professors as long as they accept
no salary. Of course, all their expenses will be paid. After the initial year, it is anticipated
that the position of professor will be circulated among the faculty.
E. Students Activities
Students will earn six credit hours.
In addition, they will be taken on several tours of important Italian sites.
F. Budget:
Airfare for Professors and
assistants: $10,000
Housing: $80,000
G. Impact
This program will put us in the first
tier of foreign program offering schools. The net cost to the School, other
than trips of guest lecturers, is zero. The two professors involved will be
paid the usual stipend for summer teaching.
Nothing seemed unusual about the program although
everyone knew it was the usual faculty boondoggle. The Committee approved it
and then then faculty. Then things started to unravel. By December several
students had put down their deposits. Over the next few months some issues came
to light. Two stood out. One was that Hugo and Chad, with spouses, had already,
with the Dean’s permission and on the law school’s dime, spend 10 days in Italy
scouting out, as they put it, suitable restaurants, clubs, spas, and coastal
areas for the program. Ok, it’s like what we call in the trade convercationing.
That is you are paid for a business trip but you are really taking a vacation
while checking off the boxes to make it seem like business.
The
second matter had to do with the budget. Usually there is a host institution
that provides a low fee some classroom
space. My curiosity piqued, I asked Chad
about this. He seemed a little sheepish but something you never do as a law
professor is show weakness or admit wrongdoing. His answer. “That is the beauty
of the Program. It will all be conducted by Zoom with the students staying at
home. Hugo and I will Zoom not just classroom activities but dining out,
clubbing, sight seeing, the works. It will be exactly like they are there.” He
went on. “I am sure it will be appealing to the students since they can stay in
the comfort of their homes and not worry about finding housing, eating in
strange places where no one understands a word they are saying.” Finally, “If
there are technological problems we will send them postcards.”
I
was reeling from this revelation when I got back to my office. None of this was
revealed when the programs committee met or at the faculty meeting. Everyone
was too busy, I suppose, booking passage to Italy for some year in the future.
When I got back to my office, there was a phone message to call Linda James. I
knew I had a student in my class named Tom James but I did not make the
connection. I called and she told me that she had tried to reach Professor
Feldman but he was not in. The secretary had directed her to me since I was
chair of the programs committee and she had a question about the program since
her son James was going. She started by saying how excited James was and how she
and her husband planned to meet James for the portion of the course in Rome.
Her
question was what types of things should James bring – clothing, dressy or not,
extra notebooks, computer, and so on. I lied, I told her that I did not know. I
did chair the committee that had approved the program but that she needed to
talk to Professor Feldman. I assumed she did eventually because I the next day
I received the following email from Chad:
Today Tom James’ mother called and asked what sort of
things he should bring from his summer in Italy. I told her that the students
were not actually going to Italy. She asked what the $3000 is for and I said
“expenses.” Then she pressed me and asked about the $80,000 for
faculty. I told her that was the going rate for appropriate housing for the
Professors and any guest lecturers who might join us. She seemed miffed about
no students going. Isn’t that just perfect!!! You try to do something for the
students and you get in hot water for it.
Later the same day:
So far two more sets of parents have contacted me. It seems to
have come as a surprise to them that the Summer Program in Italy does not
involve their dear children actually traveling to Italy. Hugo and I designed
the whole program on the theory that he and I and our spouses would go to Italy
and show the lectures and sights by Zoom (or postcard). We would do the heavy
lifting and the students would have time to study. Do they not get it.
In any case the
“program” ran for one summer only. The
revenue did not begin to cover the expenses which the law school ended up
eating. I suppose it was a success because I received the following email from
Chad:
Here is the great news. I am writing from Rome. Yes,
the summer program is in tact and Hugo, Marvel, Caroline and I are here working
hard for the students. It is true we are down to 5 students and it is true that
those five did not actually make the trip to Italy but we are working hard.
As you know, some of the students were upset that the
Summer in Italy program did not actually mean they were going to Italy — only
the professors. Some parents were quite rude and the initial enrollment dwindled
to 5. Good riddance I say. Those students obviously were not cut out for
foreign travel. The Law School decided we had to operate the program anyway
because the American Association of Law Schools had already purchased 30
tickets for a team to come and inspect the program.
We are doing our best for the five students. Each week
we send a postcard with some interesting fact about Italian law. In the
interest of giving the students what they want, we have decided not to
administer a final exam.
As for me, being a dedicated teacher of young people
is its own reward.
Law professors are evaluated to determine if they should be tenured. Supposedly you must excel in scholarship, teaching, and service. You would think that if someone actually excelled at all three, he or she would be hired away by better law schools. Very few are. Why? Because in actuality there are three requirements:
1.
write something – anything would do,
2.
be politically correct, (or very quiet),
3,
be acceptable socially.
(4.
I have also heard isolated inane standards like “she is a good mother.” but these usually do not count.)
As noted, decent teaching is supposed to count but I have seen many instances in which awful
teaching was explained away as actually an indication of good teaching. To
determine a candidate’s teaching there
are class visitations by 2 or 3 professors and the students fill out anonymous
evaluation forms at the end of the semester. Not wanting to offend someone who
may get life time employment if they meet the above “standards” the visitors
uniformly say the teacher was brilliant, engaging, showed respect for the
students and so on. One has to keep in mind that the professor knows in advance
who is coming and when. Not to be well prepared and energetic those days would
mean you are an idiot. Still, there are some who go one step beyond. For
example, at one point several students asked me why their professor gave the
same lecture day after day. As it turns out these were the days when there were class visitation, and I suppose he had the one lecture down perfectly.
The
students fill out evaluations at the end of each semester. These are pretty
much ignored whether high or low if one passes the three part test above. On
the other hand, if they are low to average, they become the hammer to justify
getting rid of the candidate who fails the three part test. But even here, many
professors do not want to leave student evaluations to chance. I have seen
professors going into classes with the forms the students must fill out in one
hand and platters of cookies or boxes of pizza in the other. Sometimes the
bribes are so shameful that even the students know what is up but this does not
discourage them accepting the bribe. One professor would sponsor a softball
game in the afternoon for his class followed by cocktails at a local pub. The
tab could run in excess of $1000 dollars. There are far more subtle bribes like
not calling on students and appearing to be deeply concerned about their
welfare when you could not care less. One very subtle effort involves handing out your own evaluations a day
or two before the official ones. A colleague who does this says it takes the
sting out of what the students may say on the official evaluations and illustrates how seriously he or she takes teaching.
Faculty
who are able to turn evaluations into popularity polls take high evaluations to
mean they are good teachers. Yet, the vast majority of studies find that there
is no correlation between student evaluations and student learning. In fact, some
find students of the highly rated professors actually learn less than those who
have professors rated lower. Actually no one knows what student evaluations
indicate. One interesting study showed students very short silent movies of
teacher and asked them to evaluate them. After the course, they also filled
out evaluations and they were about the same as the first set. One
interpretation was that the students were responding to body language and
facial expressions as much as anything else.
If
the whole evaluation of teaching process is a joke it stands right beside the
evaluation of scholarship. I am pretty sure if someone wrote nothing, not even
doodles in napkins at Starbucks he or she would not get tenure. I am just as
sure that a person who writes next to nothing but satisfies the three part test
described above will be tenured. There are two things at work here. Letters are
sent out to experts in the field. It’s a small honor or form of recognition to
be asked to review someone’s scholarship. Like many things in the law professor
world, it is something people want to be asked to do but pretend that it is
burdensome. And, it is actually burdensome to those who are popular reviewers.
Who are the popular reviewers? Typically, they are people who write positive
reviews. Who are the unpopular reviewers? Reviewers who are honest. The popular
ones use terms like “rising star,” “insightful,” “major contribution,” etc. The
unpopular ones are not afraid to say unoriginal, not carefully researched, a
repetition of his or her earlier work.
It
is not a stretch to say there is something of a market for letters. Tenure and
promotion committees want positive reviews for those passing the three part test.
If someone fails the three part test they would prefer negative reviews. But
negative reviews are hard to come by. Why? Because if you write negative reviews you may not be asked again
and, remember, being asked is a feather in your cap.
There
s a second factor in this letter solicitation process. What happens if someone
passes the three part test and a negative letter slips through. The negative
letter is either ignored or is subject to scrutiny with the result being that is is rejected. Let’s take the case of a professor who I believe had the most expensive
education available in American – Exeter, Princeton, Harvard — a nice
enough guy who fits in the category discussed later of law professors who
really do not want to be law professors so they change the job. He passed the
three part test. In fact, one colleague noted how upsetting it would be
socially if he were denied tenured. His specialty was writing about meditation. A negative letter came in observing that one of his articles was in large part the same as an earlier
article the reviewer had been asked to review for promotion. In this case, the faculty ignored
the letter. The recycling of an idea was not addressed. In some cases, the
treachery is especially extreme. We call the collection of review letters a “packet.”
I have seen packets that included quite negative reviews and the committee
making a recommendation to the faculty has said “all the letters were positive”
and no one uttered a word because the three part test was passed with flying
colors.
Remember,
these are law professors so they will often game the system. They may tell the
committee doing the evaluations who not to ask for a letter and who to ask for
a letter. It can get pretty extreme. One well know professor/politician was
said to have mailed drafts of an article to possible reviewers before hand to make
sure when the reviewer received the manuscript to review they would, in effect,
be reviewing themselves.
