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--:-- John Bickley: After decades of GOP talk about shutting down the Federal Department of Education, the Supreme Court has given the Trump administration the go-ahead to dramatically downsize the department. The drastic staff reduction is another big step toward what Team Trump hopes will be the department's complete dissolution.
--:-- Georgia Howe: I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Sunday, July 20th, and this is a weekend edition of Morning Wire. Joining us now to discuss the future of the Department of Education is Sarah Parshall Perry, vice president and legal fellow at Defending Education.
--:-- Sarah Parshall Perry: Great to have you back on. Sure. I love being on your show. Well, we love having you on the show. Well, thank you.
--:-- John Bickley: Look, we recently had a big ruling from the Supreme Court, another 6-3 decision. It lifted a lower court's injunction against the Trump administration, and it's allowed the administration to proceed with laying off around 1,300 Department of Education staff. Before we get to the significance of this, what was the logic behind that ruling?
--:-- Sarah Parshall Perry: Very simply, the chief executive officer of the nation, the commander in chief, is in charge of overseeing the functions and the staffing of the executive agencies. This has nothing to do with the entity of the Department of Education itself, which is, of course, a creature of statutory law and cannot be dismantled without congressional input and involvement.
--:-- Georgia Howe: In terms of the dissent, was there really an argument that the president didn't have the authority to do this?
--:-- Sarah Parshall Perry: You know, it's always very interesting to see how creative the dissent has been lately. And of course, Justice Jackson and Justice Sotomayor have been notable in their fiery dissents lately. But once again, they were clear that their thinking on this was that it required congressional input because obviously the Department of Education itself is a creature of statutory law.
--:-- John Bickley: But again, this has nothing to do with the actual operation of the department or whether or not the department is itself being dismantled. This is simply a staffing decision, which is itself an exercise of executive authority.
--:-- Sarah Parshall Perry: So does the Trump administration have the authority to all but officially dismantle this department? Well, it can begin the process of downsizing. And in fact, we know that six of the 12 regional offices for Department of Education have already been shut down, which has resulted in a significant decrease in workload.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And there is, of course, naturally some increase in case law and case loading that will happen through the remaining staff appointees. But of course that is a necessary consequence of a bloated bureaucracy
--:-- Sarah Parshall Perry: What this Department of Education seeks to do and what the president seeks to do is ultimately ensure that this is a fast nimble and streamlined Department of Education unless and until we can get congressional involvement to be able to dismantle the agency altogether.
--:-- John Bickley: Now we have Education Secretary Linda McMahon with this very odd task of dismantling the department that she oversees. I don't know if we've ever seen something quite like this.
--:-- Sarah Parshall Perry: The ruling paves the way for her to do a lot of that. She argues that states can educate children much better than the federal government. Do we have evidence that this is true?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, I can tell you we can look no further than some of the blue states like Mississippi and Louisiana, which, of course, have instituted, for example, literacy standards that outpace significantly the yields and the results of those children who are reading in the fourth and eighth grades, which are the grades at which the National Association of Education Placement rankings are recorded nationally.
--:-- Sarah Parshall Perry: Those come out every single year. And what we've seen is that it does not require a lot of money to educate well. And in fact, in some poverty-stricken areas, we have soaring literacy rates in math and English, specifically because we've got good chancellors, good state governors, good state secretaries of education who have required rigorous education standards and are less concerned with throwing money at the problem of American education and are more concerned with the rigor and right pedagogical thinking on getting these kids best suited to succeed in college and beyond.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, Sarah, you mentioned Mississippi there. The Mississippi miracle is what they're calling it. Did that have anything to do with the federal government? Was there a role that the federal government played in their reforms?
--:-- Sarah Parshall Perry: You know, it's very interesting. They had very little to do in this. In fact, the literacy bill itself that instituted more rigorous reading curricular standards was actually instituted all the way back in 2013. So this specifically is a goal that the state of Mississippi has been working toward for some time.
--:-- John Bickley: In fact, they funded a two-year course in evidence-based reading methods for all elementary school teachers. They have a focus on nonfiction reading. They have a focus on reading complete novels, which studies indicate on a widespread basis actually lead to not only increased literacy rates, but higher IQ rates as well.
--:-- Sarah Parshall Perry: We are not in an age generally in American education where we focus children's attention for longer than it takes to read, for example, a blog post or a news article online. This is a generation of immediate and instant satisfaction. I know this full well, being the mother of three, 21 and under. And unfortunately, it's going to require some heavy-duty investment, the elimination of screen time, and really getting back to the chalkboard on what it looks like for these kids to succeed and to read well.
--:-- Georgia Howe: You know, it's kind of interesting. As a former college professor myself, I used to conduct this sort of unscientific poll. How many students had read a complete book during their four years in high school? My rough estimate was about 15% would say they'd actually read a complete book in all of high school. It really shocked me.
--:-- Sarah Parshall Perry: Yeah. And in fact, we've even seen that in college as well. In fact, right now, 35% of American college freshmen, only 35% of them have read more than five complete books in the course of any given educational year. Now, these are kids who are in college, enrolled full-time who should ostensibly be reading complete books, whether nonfiction or fiction, but your sense on that is entirely accurate.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, I always love hearing I'm correct. Now a lot of our listeners may be surprised to learn that the DOE does not actually educate children. What is its function? What is its primary function?
--:-- Sarah Parshall Perry: To spend money it would appear. In fact, ever since 1980, when it was formally adopted by Congressional Act, we have spent a total of $3 trillion, with a T, dollars on American education. And right now, our national averages are lingering at about 27% math literacy for eighth graders and 30% English literacy for eighth graders. We're in the middle of the pack of Western developed nations, which is inexcusable for the amount of money that we throw at the problem.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, part of this, I believe, is the fact that previous administrations have been so keen to partner with big money through the unions and partner on social experimenting that we don't obviously focus exclusively on math, English, science, the curricular standards that are required to ensure that our kids are performing up to par with their international counterparts.
--:-- Sarah Parshall Perry: But 27 percent and 30 percent respectively is an unconscionable outcome for what we've actually spent through the Department of Education. They do not educate. In fact, here lately, it's looked a lot more under the previous administration like indoctrination, but they are simply the holders of the purse strings and the manager of civil rights complaints throughout the entire country. They do not educate a single student.
--:-- John Bickley: I actually wanted to ask you about a few of those programs that have already been shut down in a second. But in the defense of the Department of Education, has it had any successes that we should preserve, if maybe through other agencies?
--:-- Sarah Parshall Perry: I love that question because, of course, having worked at the Department of Education in the Office for Civil Rights as the senior attorney there, I have to tell you, I feel very passionately about the application and the securing and protection of civil rights protections for all American students.
--:-- Georgia Howe: In fact, I had two sons, one with an IEP plan, which was given to him through the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, and one with a 504 plan, which is granted to him through the Rehabilitation Act. These are two federal civil rights laws that have protected students with disabilities with differential learning outcomes for years. They should be preserved.
--:-- Sarah Parshall Perry: Women's sports is another opportunity which guarantees the equality under Title IX of the Education Amendments of boys and girls, men and women. In all educational funded programs through the Department of Education, civil rights protections need to maintain their status. And whether that's through the Department of Education, through the Department of Justice, or through the Department of Health and Human Services, which originally used to apply these civil rights laws remains to be seen, but those are protections that should remain in place.
--:-- John Bickley: Right. So some of the funding programs, the idea is to shift them over to some other departments. You named a couple there. What would be the primary departments to handle most of these programs?
--:-- Sarah Parshall Perry: Well, I mentioned the Department of Health and Human Services. Remember, before the Department of Education was a creation with a creature of statutory law, it used to be the Department of Health, Education and Welfare or HUH. So there was a point at which HHS was actually enforcing special protections for civil rights laws through American education outlets, specifically so for students with disabilities.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, also at Department of Justice, Department of Justice is the nation's law firm and it has a portfolio for each of the individual agencies. It has an entire portfolio just for the Department of Education itself. Those are tasks that could congressionally be moved over under something like the General Education Provisions Act that would allow the transference of some of those duties.
--:-- Sarah Parshall Perry: But again that would require congressional input and oversight but it is entirely possible.
--:-- John Bickley: All right, so again moving some of these programs will require Congress weighing in. Yes, absolutely. And I think that something that we need to maintain consistency in repeating. This cannot be simply undone by pulling the plug and walking out the door on the last day of the Trump administration. It is ultimately going to require congressional involvement.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, a couple of programs have already been shut down by the Trump administration. Can you expand on that a little bit more for us?
--:-- Sarah Parshall Perry: Sure. In fact, many of these can be tracked back to some of his initial executive orders that go back to the first weeks and months of the Trump administration, one of which that comes immediately to mind is restoring meritocracy to American education and the elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion.
--:-- John Bickley: We realize that DEI programs, and we have no further to look than Harvard University, Columbia University, where these types of programs were rampant. But what they were was essentially tax-funded discrimination.
--:-- Sarah Parshall Perry: So every average American was funding with their tax dollars discriminatory programs for everything like racially separate graduation programs, racial affinity groups, scholarships only based on your skin color, scholarships based only on your sex. These are patent violations, and especially so after the Supreme Court's 2022 ruling in students for fair admission versus Harvard.
--:-- Georgia Howe: They have had a slap on the wrist. They've had the Supreme Court weigh in. They've had the Trump administration weigh in. They are consistent bad actors. And in fact, their racially discriminatory programs did all the way back to the 1920s when they tried to eliminate American Jewish students from being on college campus for purposes of diluting the white ratio.
--:-- Sarah Parshall Perry: So Harvard is a consistent bad actor. They had been public enemy number one for this administration and the dismantling of DEI programs, which is really race discrimination by another name, is not only saving taxpayer dollars. It is also ensuring a colorblind American education for every student.
--:-- John Bickley: Legally, does it look like the administration's actions on those issues are going to hold up or do you get the sense that we could see reversals?
--:-- Sarah Parshall Perry: No, we don't. In fact, obviously looking no further than the students for fair admission case itself, which not only took a look at Harvard University, but also UNC Chapel Hill. So we were dealing with both a private and a public university. So the court made very clear that not just under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which requires race neutrality in publicly funded programs, but also under the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment. Both of them required colorblind American education.
--:-- Georgia Howe: I think the Trump administration is fully within its legal and constitutional rights here.
--:-- John Bickley: All right, final question. What are the next steps that you expect from McMahon and company?
--:-- Sarah Parshall Perry: Well, this is going to be an interesting remaining three years, I think, for the Trump administration, not the least of which is because the Supreme Court has just granted cert in two cases, specifically on the constitutionality and legality of Women's Sports Protection Acts, One coming out of the state of Montana, one coming out of the state of West Virginia.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And in very short order, probably by as soon as this calendar year or the beginning of next, we may receive final clarity from the Supreme Court on whether or not women's sports can indeed be separated by sex.
--:-- Sarah Parshall Perry: And that will, of course, direct the Department of Education's actions going forward and provide them, I believe, significant air cover for their continued protection of women on college campuses everywhere.
--:-- John Bickley: Well, they're going to keep us busy reporting on this, and we'll have you on for sure to talk more about all this stuff as it happens.
--:-- Sarah Parshall Perry: Thanks again.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That was Sarah Parshall Perry, Vice President and Legal Fellow at Defending Education, and this has been a weekend edition of Morning Wire.
