Disconnected: How Closing the Department of Education Could Impact K-12 Distance Learning
By Rebecca J. Blankenship, Ph.D.
Distance education has become a learning modality staple in K-12 education in United States public schools. Virtual learning and online instruction have become vital parts of current teaching and learning, almost synonymous with what is considered part of a modern education experience. However, with the potential shuttering of the Department of Education, there are many questions surrounding the short- and long-term impacts on how distance learning will be delivered, funded, and regulated. Here, we discuss the urgency to begin a dialogue about the potential positive and negative implications of distance learning without the DOE, as we grapple with virtual futures now on ambiguous foundations.
During the 2024 presidential race, then-candidate Donald Trump campaigned on the pledge to eliminate the federal Department of Education and return control of our nation’s K-12 public schools back to state governments and local school districts. His pledge was met with significant backlash from teachers, teachers’ unions, and state legislators concerned that decentralizing public education would have negative long-term implications in multiple areas, ranging from funding to specialized student services. In the first 100 days of the Trump presidency, the legal challenges to his executive orders to begin dismantling the Department of Education entered the federal court system,
