A regular feature to the Chagrin Gateway Democrats from Lyn Newman

What happened? : Candidate Trump told us “I have nothing to do with Project 2025” and he would be bringing down grocery prices on day one. President Trump has put a laser focus on the priorities of Project 2025 and grocery prices have soared. This week, while still doing nothing that helps lower food prices, he made good on another Project 2025 goal. He signed an executive order to shut down the Department of Education. Trump wants to give the responsibility for education “back to the states”.

Why it matters? : The Department of Education is responsible for financial aid, data collection about education, education reform, and prohibiting discrimination. Getting rid of the department puts at risk programs like Pell grants that provide financial aid for future teachers, the research that allows us to identify areas of improvement, and programs for the disabled. Poorer states get a much larger percentage of their education budget from federal monies. Leaving aside the fact that presidents cannot unilaterally end cabinet level departments without congressional approval, who does the Department of Education closure serve? Our society is best served by having a well educated workforce taught by creative and well compensated teachers. Taking money away from schools is not the way to make that happen. Especially in an environment where tax cuts are being planned for those in our wealthiest tax brackets.

What can we do about it? We can start by attending the April 3, 6:30 pm meeting of the Chagrin Gateway Democrats at the Orange Library where a panel discussion on the education and funding cuts including several current and former school board members. There we will learn how these cuts might affect our schools, and how we might most effectively target our protests.

Lyn Newman can be found on Bluesky