Dive Brief:

• The U.S. Department of Education under President Barack Obama has operated under the belief that the federal government has an important role to play in educational equity, but the department under president-elect Donald Trump almost certainly will take a different tack.
• The Washington Post reports Secretary of Education nominee Betsy DeVos said last year “government really sucks,” and President-elect Donald Trump has promised to reduce federal involvement in the nation’s schools, including staking out a lesser role in civil rights enforcement.
• After eight years of strong advocacy work in the Obama administration’s Education Department, the next era of the department is guaranteed to be more hands-off — a major concern for those on the left and a reason to celebrate for their critics on the right.

Dive Insight:

The Obama administration was particularly aggressive when it came to civil rights enforcement. His Office of Civil Rights took particularly bold steps in using Title IX to protect transgender students and bring attention to sexual assault in educational institutions. It also was more aggressive in protecting the rights of English learners than prior administrations.

Still, even if Trump had risen to power with a message of a strong federal role in education, he would have been hampered by the bipartisan replacement to No Child Left Behind, the Every Student Succeeds Act. Congress already decided to end the Obama era by guaranteeing states would have more control over educational policy decision-making before voters decided the next president. The major question now is what states will do with this power and how it will impact students.