U.S. education moves should concern Canadians

Opinion

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This article was published 22/02/2025 (209 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

United States President Donald Trump has made a series of high-profile threats against Canada and other countries since his second term began a month ago — but his proposed educational reforms also require serious attention.

Trump has promised to close the Department of Education, which enforces civil rights in education, sends funding to schools and oversees student loans.

The Associated Press reported the president’s pick for education secretary, Linda McMahon, has acknowledged that only the U.S. Congress could fully shut down the education department, but she wants to “reorient” it.

McMahon is expected to be confirmed after her nomination is considered by the full Senate.

The Legal Defense Fund, an organization that supports racial justice, has expressed concern that McMahon will support reduced federal oversight that will result in undermining civil rights protections and key federal programs.

Moves to weaken public education in the United States may seem distant. However, as Canadians have seen with polarization affecting democratically elected school boards, shifts in the U.S. can act like canaries in the coal mine for our own public education systems.

We address this as researchers and educators whose combined expertise has examined how defunding and policy interventions can erode public education.

Project 2025 and education

In recent years, there has been escalating hype that public schools have become sites of political proselytizing as alleged “woke” teachers aim to instil “Marxist attitudes” among youth.

Trump has, unfortunately, concertedly stoked flames of distrust, particularly among MAGA movement supporters, toward teachers, administrators, curricula and public educational systems.

The now infamous Project 2025 policy framework has a dedicated chapter outlining drastic educational reformation in the U.S.

While the president publicly disavowed any formal affiliation with Project 2025, his positions formally outlined in his Agenda 47 Ten Principles for Great Schools Leading to Great Jobs and other public statements are generally indistinguishable from those espoused by Project 2025.

Trump’s 10 Principles

The 10 principles for educational revision include “restoring parental rights” by allowing parents to vote to appoint local school principals; abolishing teacher tenure, which will undermine teachers’ unions; and introducing merit pay. In addition, there are plans to “create a credentialing body to certify teachers who embrace patriotic values and support the American Way of Life.”

Trump also aims to bar critical race theory and “gender indoctrination” from public schools.

During campaign events, Trump often reiterated his goals to “cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory … and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content …”

These ideas have been steadily infiltrating some states’ legislative and school policies. An example is Florida’s re-framing of academic standards to teach that some enslaved people benefited from enslavement. The non-profit Human Rights Campaign Foundation notes that “of the 489 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in 2024, over 60 per cent — more than 300 bills — focused on youth and education.”

Similar attacks seen in Canada

Trump declared during his inauguration speech that “we have an education system that teaches our children to be ashamed of themselves — in many cases, to hate our country … All of this will change starting today, and it will change very quickly.”

Evidently, significant educational reform is a high priority.

Reforms to the American education system should be cause for concern for Canadians. The overt attacks on public education that we are seeing in the U.S. are already occurring in Canada, albeit often in more insidious and fragmented ways.

Parental rights rhetoric

“Parental rights” rhetoric is fuelling movements across Canada that are aimed at delimiting the rights of students to learn about sexual health and understand gender diversity.

Parents have a multitude of diverse concerns for their children and their interests, and parental engagement is of importance for schools.

But these “rights”-based movements fuel public moral panic and fan the flames of neo-conservative agendas.

The “parental rights” movement capitalizes on rights rhetoric to mobilize only the concerns of the conservative right and their traditional family narratives. This denies other parents’ concerns, and as child advocates have argued, it also violates children’s rights.

The parental rights movement also aims to undermine school-based sexual health education, which most parents support.

Across provinces

In 2023, Saskatchewan passed a Parents’ Bill of Rights requiring parental consent for children under the age of 16 to use a different pronoun or name in school.

The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission and numerous professors of law denounced the move for pre-emptively using the notwithstanding clause to override rights upheld in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

We saw similar efforts in New Brunswick and in Manitoba in governing parties’ platforms and recent unsuccessful re-election campaigns.

This year, Alberta introduced a more expansive bill banning gender-affirming care for children under the age of 16 and banning trans women and girls from competing in female sports.

The parental rights rhetoric, a dog-whistle for anti-2SLGBTQ+ views, is not new in Canada. However, it seems to be finding renewed energy, especially in conservative-led provinces.

Anti-2SLGBTQ+ rhetoric can also found in recent attempts to advocate for book bans (like in Chilliwack, B.C., and in Manitoba in 2022) or in protests against Drag Queen story hours (in Ontario in 2023).

There have also been efforts by national neo-conservative organizations to interfere with school board elections, endeavouring to recruit and support anti-trans candidates to run for office.

Undermining teachers and unions

Similarly, attempts to undermine teachers and their unions are occurring.

For example, the Manitoba government recently passed Bill 35. The legislation was introduced under the premise of addressing teacher sexual misconduct, but the bill’s language was broadened to include teacher “competence” and “professionalism.”

A similar bill was recently passed in Alberta.

In both examples, governments say they are creating an “arms-length” disciplinary process for teachers. But these reforms have been criticized for weakening teachers’ unions, deprofessionalizing teaching and conflating competence and misconduct — all of which work to expand government regulation and oversight of teachers while undermining unions.

In Ontario, in 2022 following concerning pandemic interruptions to in-person schooling, the government implemented a mandatory online learning graduation requirement. Procedures exist for students to be opted out, but it’s up to parents or students to specifically request this.

The requirement has been criticized for reducing teaching staff and increasing the privatization of public schools.

Strong public schools

Strong public schools rely on qualified teachers whose professional judgment and autonomy is protected and supported, in part, by teacher unions.

The events unfolding in the U.S. should act as a warning to Canadians, calling us to pay close attention to what is happening in our local school districts and school boards.

Being able to understand and identify regressive reform efforts and how they are subverting public education and democracy — as we endeavour to foster and build real relationships in our local school communities — is of urgent and national concern.

» Melanie D. Janzen is a professor in the faculty of education at the University of Manitoba. Jordan Laidlaw is a PhD candidate in educational administration at the University of Manitoba.

» This column was originally published at The Conversation Canada: theconversation.com/ca